


the hollow men

by dlm



Series: HITMAN AU [2]
Category: Big Bang (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Alternate Universe - Gangsters, Alternate Universe - Mob, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Heist, Homophobia, M/M, Minor Character Death, aka the hitman au that nobody asked for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-08
Updated: 2016-12-08
Packaged: 2018-09-07 06:59:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 26,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8788120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dlm/pseuds/dlm
Summary: The thing is, when YG had described Seunghyun as a hitman, he was entirely, literally, correct. He hits men. He gets a contract, and he goes wham bam thank you ma'am, and then boom, the guy's dead, and Seunghyun gets money deposited into his account in Switzerland the very next day.He's like the yakuza having a business meeting in Disneyland in broad daylight.In other words: he's not subtle.





	1. #000000

**Author's Note:**

> this is a hitman AU, which means that they are not Paragons of Morality, so here is a cw for:  
> violence / homophobia (only dealt w/ in the climax) / death (of original characters dw) 
> 
> that said this has been!!! a Thing that i've been working on and i'm so happy that i can? upload it lmao. 
> 
> many many many thanks to sandra, who is Possibly the Greatest Person Alive for betaing this for me. thank u for screaming at seunghyun w/ me and everything .. ..ur the bomb.  
> pls pls pls check out her work at [ao3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aishiteita/pseuds/aishiteita) bc she does fantastic svt and bts stuff and follow her twitter [@tinycpr](https://twitter.com/tinycpr) !!!

It happens in a convenience store at 4 am, of all things.

Choi Seunghyun's in an ill fitting suit; his knuckles are bloody and bruised, and all he had wanted was a quick smoke, but his lighter had decided to run out of fuel at the most inopportune time.

"Hello," he says politely to the bored clerk behind the register, because he's a law-abiding citizen who has manners. "May I purchase a lighter?"

Yawning, the clerk reaches for his keys in his back pocket and unlocks the cabinet containing Adult Objects: cigarettes, booze, condoms. Seunghyun wants to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all, but he doesn't, and he patiently waits for the clerk to retrieve the lighter from the cabinet.

The clerk slaps it down on the surface of the counter and smacks his gum pointedly as he names its price.

Seunghyun pulls a crisp banknote from his wallet and hands it over to the clerk, who punches the register and stores the money with evident apathy.

"Thank you," Seunghyun says, walking out of the store with his change and lighter in hand. He's about to pull out his pack of cigarettes from his back pocket when he feels the cool metal barrel of a gun nuzzle the back of his head.

He stops.

"What can I do for you," Seunghyun says, evenly. He doesn't even think the clerk notices that he's currently being held at gunpoint, and he's not sure whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. He's hoping for the former.

"Get in the car," the man with a gun says. From this angle, Seunghyun can tell that he has a good few inches on the man who has a gun to his head (TMWHAGTHH for short) based on the way the gun's aimed at the base of his skull and the steady breaths he feels on his neck.

"I came here with my motorbike," Seunghyun replies, and the man snorts and presses the gun harder.

"We’re going in the car I came in, smartass," TMWHAGTHH, or simply, Gunman, says. He has a point, Seunghyun thinks, and so he follows him obediently to the car waiting for them outside.

Once they're in the car, Seunghyun's about to ask his kidnapper several questions--"can I turn on the radio?" is one of them, considering that in past experience, questions such as "who are you?" had earned him a slap to the face. He’s interrupted by the Gunman crudely tying a blindfold of sorts around his eyes, though.

"This smells like lavender," Seunghyun comments, and reclines in his seat. In all honesty, it's rather difficult to relax when you're being kidnapped and now blindfolded, but Seunghyun has (unfortunately) gotten used to this kind of situation.

If he had his blindfold off, he would have wagered that Gunman was currently scowling at him. However, he is currently blinded, and so he can only take an educated guess.

He wonders whether the Gunman has had ample experience in kidnapping people.

"Have you kidnapped a lot of people?" He says out loud.

"Don’t make me tape your mouth shut, too." Is the response that he gets, which is rather a cliché, pseudo-Hollywood kind of an answer, if you ask Seunghyun. But no one asks him anything, ever, so he slumps on the plush leather car seat with disdain.

He eventually drifts off to a state of half-sleep, half-annoyed-consciousness, (the annoyance due to the fact that he's being kidnapped, after all) and is jolted awake by Gunman shaking him with a sort of gentleness that he didn't really expect. Huh.

"We’re here," Gunman says, stating the obvious, and Seunghyun barely stops himself from cracking a wiseass retort of sorts.

Gunman leads him into a building -- a swanky office building, by the feel of things. Seunghyun's had plenty of time to hone in on all of his senses, and even if his sight is temporarily unavailable, that just means that he's supposed to rely on other cues. Like the sound of chatter in the lobby--he assumes he's in a lobby, judging by the noise of telephones ringing and polite greetings made to whoever's on the other end of the receiver, amongst other things.

However, right as he's about to go into full Holmesian Deductive Mode, Gunman takes the blindfold off him and Seunghyun blinks.

Gunman's...unexpectedly pretty. There's no real way to put it, really, other than the fact that Gunman's considerably shorter than him--which he had picked up on earlier, but now Seunghyun knows that Gunman can fit into the crook of his neck, if he wanted to. Which is a bizarre thing to think about your kidnapper, really, and so he takes his eyes off Gunman and looks around the room instead.

It is, in fact, the lobby of a swanky office building.

"Fancy," Seunghyun says.

Gunman crooks a smile and runs a hand through his dyed orange hair. Huh. Maybe Seunghyun should've picked that up instead of waxing poetic about his prettiness. Gunman gestures for him to follow, and so Seunghyun does, like an obedient puppy. Except that Seunghyun is far too old for this shit.

They go up a lift to a floor that's ridiculously sky high. Seunghyun's guessing that he's being taken to the Big Boss' office.

\--And he's right, judging by the weird paraphernalia arranged in white shelves that greet him upon entering the room. Big Bosses always have weird paraphernalia arranged in white shelves, Seunghyun thinks. And white furniture, he mentally adds, noting how the room seems to be blindingly white. Aforementioned Big Boss nods upon their arrival in their office, and nods at Gunman to leave the two of them in peace, which he does.

"Hello sir," Seunghyun greets, because, as previously demonstrated, he is nothing but polite. Politeness oozes out from his pores. He is a paragon of politeness.

Before he can continue on his alliterative train of thought, however, Big Boss clears his throat and starts speaking.

"You must be wondering why you were brought here."

His voice is oddly nasal, and Seunghyun idly wonders that if his life were a movie, he wouldn't want the Big Bosses of his life to be voiced by this guy.

"Um," Seunghyun says instead.

"Let's not beat around the bush here, shall we?"

"I hate beating bushes," Seunghyun agrees.

"Choi Seunghyun," Big Boss starts, as if he's reading off a list. "Born in 1987. Art thief-cum-forger turned collector. Likes wine. Freelance hitman," he ends, with a pointed look at Seunghyun. Huh. Maybe he _is_ reading off a list.

"That's me," Seunghyun chirps, because it's not as if he can shake his head and say that it isn't him, can he? He looks down at his socks; tastefully patterned in the style of Van Gogh's _Starry Night._ His socks have betrayed him, he thinks.

"You must be wondering why you were brought here."

"Eh." Seunghyun reaches up and scratches the back of his neck, shrugging. "I can guess."

"Oh, really?" Big Boss looks amused now; steepling his fingers together in a way that makes Seunghyun think he's seen far too many Austin Powers films.

"Sure. You want to hire me for some sort of job."

Big Boss looks taken aback, as if he hadn't expected Seunghyun to be perceptive in any way. It's due to his resting bitch face, Seunghyun thinks mournfully. "Well, yes. Not any sort of job, though," Big Boss says, recollecting himself and going back to his whole initial Leery Boss image he had going on.

"A murder-y job?"

"How did you know?"

"Just a stab in the dark, really." Seunghyun wants to hi five himself for his pun, but it apparently goes over Big Boss' head, because he doesn't comment on it. What a shame.

"A full time contract, actually. Your files state that you've worked freelance all your life, but you're in your late 20s, Seunghyun."

"So?"

Big Boss rubs a hand over his face and sighs, as if Seunghyun's being deliberately difficult. Which he is, actually, most of the time, but that's his default state, so. "You can't stay unsigned to an agency forever. You've accumulated several powerful enemies over the years."

"So?"

"They'll want to get rid of you," Big Boss says, slowly, as if he's speaking to a dumb child.

"So?"

"We can prevent that from happening," Big Boss says, through gritted teeth.

Seunghyun mulls over this for a couple of seconds, before shaking his head. "Nah."

"What?"

"I'm not interested." Seunghyun shrugs. "There's a reason why I haven't signed with an agency for so long, and it's because I work best alone."

"I had a feeling you would say that," Big Boss says, more to himself than anything. "Never mind. You can leave." He pushes a button on his rather complex-looking intercom system, and within seconds, Gunman has entered the room with raised eyebrows.

"Yes, YG?"

Great, Seunghyun thinks. Apparently Big Boss goes by initials, which he hasn't heard of since the 90s, probably. It was easier, then, to murder people who didn't really have proper names, he thinks. He remembers having to shoot a girl named DJ. How wild.

"Escort Choi Seunghyun out of the building," YG says, and Gunman just looks at Seunghyun like he's fucked up, and it's the first time he's felt any fear since he was kidnapped.

Which, again, is ridiculous, much like the rest of Seunghyun's life, but as Gunman leads him out of the building with a hand on the small of his back, he can't help but wonder whether he'd made the right decision after all.

 

* * *

 

Several days later, Seunghyun wakes up in the middle of the night with the distinct realisation that he has, in fact, fucked up.

He knows this for a fact, because:

  1. His apartment has been broken in.
  2. He has a knife to his throat.
  3. He's wearing his embarrassing pyjamas, because the rest of his clothes were bloodied and in the wash, and he had nothing left in his wardrobe to wear to bed, save for The Embarrassing Pyjamas With Smiling Stars Embroidered All Over.



That should have been a sign from the start, but no, he thinks, solemnly, as his attacker presses the knife dangerously close to his throat, he had to go and ignore all the warning signs.

"Let me guess," Seunghyun says, with a tired sigh, "you're here to kill me."

"Um, yes," his attacker says, with an awkward shuffle so that he can regain dominance, or whatever attackers do to make themselves sleep better at night.

"Right," Seunghyun yawns, "make this quick, then."

"Aren’t you going to fight back?"

"What? No. I've lived the good life," he says, and he does a weak fist pump. He cringes inwardly. "Fought the good fight. Or whatever. It doesn't matter."

"Fuck," his attacker says, and he withdraws the knife away from Seunghyun with a groan. "You were supposed to be scared!"

Seunghyun blinks. This is typically not in the script, as scripts go.

"You were supposed to, I don't know, beg for your life, and then I would drag you to the stupid office again and then you would accept the offer to work for us."

A wave of déjà vu washes over him.

As if reading Seunghyun's thoughts, his attacker pulls off his black ski mask and looks at Seunghyun. A shock of orange hair and a familiar scowl greets him.

"Oh, hello, Gunman."

"What?" Gunman says, wrinkling his nose. It's a pretty nose, Seunghyun thinks. Pretty, like the rest of him. "I have a name."

"I'm Choi Seunghyun," he says, offering his hand for Gunman-with-a-name to shake. "I believe you are my kidnapper."

"Um. Kwon Jiyong," Kwon Jiyong says, shaking his hand, and the two of them stay like that on Seunghyun's bed for a while.

"So. You're taking me to the office?" Seunghyun says, after a considerable pause.

"Yes. Please act scared when you get there," Jiyong replies, and what the hell, he'll oblige this time.

It’s not like he has anything to lose. Except for maybe his life, but whatever.

 

* * *

 

As Jiyong stated, YG was there, waiting for them in his office, along with three other men that Seunghyun doesn't recognise.

"Is he the new guy?" A guy with dyed platinum blonde hair says, and Seunghyun waves at him.

"I am," Seunghyun says.

"I thought you weren't coming back," YG says, which is a stupid thing to say, really, considering that he has Seunghyun's contract laid out on his pristine white table.

"Changed my mind," Seunghyun says, although he's not really sure what made him change his mind himself. But whatever. He'll figure that out later on. For now, he has a contract to sign.

The thing is, Seunghyun hadn't been a hitman all his life. Like his file said, he had a perfectly adequate childhood, where he was only occasionally caught for doing petty crime. Nothing serious. His family was the very definition of middle class, so it's not as though he can go around pointing at a supposed "troubled childhood" or anything.

He can't exactly sink on a therapist's armchair and declare dramatically, with an arm draped on his face, that "it all began when I was five and I saw daddy hit mommy" or whatever sob story any psychiatrist wants to dig up from him. He’s perfectly fine, thank you very much, and if some asshole wants to tell him something redundant like, "killing people is evil" or whatever, then that's their prerogative; not his. He’s happy to be able to get to travel around the world without having to worry about the financial repercussions, for one. And if that comes with the fact that he has to occasionally kill a person or two, then he's perfectly willing to pay the price.

But of course, this isn't important, because, as YG tells him, he's no longer going to be operating on his own.

"You’re shutting down my business?" Seunghyun says, feeling affronted.

"Not quite. I'd like you to meet your new partners in crime," and YG looks pleased at his own pun. Seunghyun glares at him and YG visibly shrinks back in his seat before coughing.

"I'm sure you've met Kwon Jiyong," he says, pointing at him. Jiyong looks at Seunghyun with a wry smirk. Seunghyun vaguely feels as though he's being hunted. "I'll leave the rest of you to continue with your introductions," YG says, and unexpectedly takes his leave.

Seunghyun quickly learns their names: smirky blonde dude is Seungri, serious-looking guy is called Youngbae, smiley dude is Kang Daesung. And of course, Kwon Jiyong is Kwon Jiyong.

He also learns that all of them have stage names, ranging from normal to ridiculous. (How did Seungri became 'Victory' is beyond him.)

"The stage names are also like secret agent names, if you will," Youngbae explains. "It's just for fieldwork and paperwork purposes, really."

Wait. "We have paperwork?" Seunghyun says, incredulous.

Jiyong smiles at him. "Yes."

"Fuck," Seunghyun mutters. In all of his years going solo shooting people, he hadn't had to fill out a single goddamned sheet of paper explaining anything.

"There's a first time for everything," Jiyong says, and Seunghyun gets the feeling that he's being mocked.

"So now I get to run around playing secret agent with a secret name," Seunghyun says, flatly.

They name him T.O.P, which is at least 80% ridiculous in itself. What is he supposed to be on top of? His life? He was practically scammed into this whole business!

"This is a disgrace," he tells his reflection in the mirror above the sink later on that night when he's back in his apartment.

The day had passed by pretty uneventfully, all things considered. He has office hours now, which is a little weird, but it's not like a 9 to 5 job or anything, which comforts him greatly.

The five of them are named Bigbang, for reasons unknown to Seunghyun. He'd heard that YG had taken the liberty of naming other units as well, and their names are equally as baffling. 2NE1? Winner? IKON? Blackpink? What the fuck?

But the rest of Bigbang had seemed nice, and according to Seungri, who's even chattier than Seunghyun's great aunt, he shouldn't have a problem fitting in, despite the abruptness of his arrival.

Seunghyun had wanted to know more about them -- how the hell had they gotten themselves into this, for one, but he had decided that perhaps he could save his questions for later on. People tended to babble in life-or-death situations, so maybe he would begin to ask questions when they were out on a heist or whatever of their own.

For now, though, he splashes water on his face and wonders whether he's lost any semblance of normalcy in exchange for making his job somewhat more acceptable in the eyes of crooks, apparently.

 

* * *

 

Their first proper con together happens faster that Seunghyun had expected.

"Don't I get an orientation period or something," he'd grumbled on the phone to Seungri, who had told him to Get Going. "A slow introduction to the world of murder. It's only been a month since I've managed to get myself into this mess."

Seungri had snorted and that was that, and so Seunghyun finds himself riding on his bike with a strange address punched into his GPS.

Once he nears a shady-looking shack, his phone tells him that he's arrived, and he tries not to groan out loud at the terrible image of a group of murderers huddled together in a desolate shack; planning their next crime. It's absolutely tragic.

Parking his bike by the shack, he walks up to the front door and knocks twice.

Daesung opens the door with a sunny smile and a bottle of wine, and Seunghyun thinks that he could, in fact, get used to working with other people. He gives a two fingered salute to Daesung, who ushers him in.

Despite its shitty exterior, the shack is actually less like a shack and more like a luxe cabin once he's indoors, and there are even tastefully framed paintings hanging on the wall, which Seunghyun definitely appreciates.

From where he's standing, he spots Jiyong, Youngbae, and Seungri sitting by the dining table, where they're in the middle of a deep discussion. There's a map spread out on the table, nearly covering its entire surface, and Seunghyun walks closer to them so he can peer at the map.

"We're going to Tokyo?" he says.

"How did you know?" Seungri says, comically wide-eyed in disbelief.

Seunghyun points at the map's title, which reads MAP OF TOKYO in capital letters.

"Oh," Seungri says.

"We're intercepting a business deal in Tokyo Disneyland," Youngbae says.

"Okay," Seunghyun nods, then, "wait, what the fuck."

"They're holding it there for that very reason--no one suspects funny business in Disneyland. Kabuki-cho, maybe. But not Disneyland. It's genius, really." Youngbae stares off into the distance with a wistful look on his face. "I wish we had come up with it ourselves."

"Right," Seunghyun says, because, what the fuck.

"How's your Japanese, TOP?" Youngbae asks. He pronounces it as 'top' rather than 'T dot O dot P', which Seunghyun respects. It's a tedious name, really.

"Not that great," he admits.

"Don't worry. The three of us can speak for you, then." Youngbae gestures at himself, Daesung, and Seungri. "You can do recon with Jiyong before we intercept."

"Or you can disguise yourselves as tourists," Seungri says. "Actually, that would be great. We could ALL be tourists. I've always wanted to ride space mountain." he turns to Jiyong, who looks both amused and disapproving all at once. "Please, Jiyong? We can group ourselves off and just wander around the park. We'll do our job, obviously," he says quickly, "but think about it: Space Mountain." He even waggles his fingers.

"Why not," Jiyong says, and for the nth time, Seunghyun thinks, what the fuck.

"By the way, we have a LINE group chat, and we haven't added you yet," Daesung says, tapping away at his phone. "What's your LINE ID?"

"How do you know my personal info, and somehow not know my LINE ID?" Seunghyun says. The whole situation is surreal. He doesn't even have time to balk at the thought of them having a LINE group chat.

"Fair play," Daesung says, with a toothy grin, and a few moments afterwards, Seunghyun's phone buzzes in his pocket.

He pulls it out and checks his notifications.

**D-LITE has invited you to the LINE group BIGBANG!!!!!!!!**

"What the fuck," Seunghyun says, faintly.

Youngbae pats his shoulders with a solemnness that Seunghyun is grateful for. "Welcome to Bigbang."

 

* * *

 

They enter Japan in style, or so Seungri says.

All five of them are dressed in suits that actually fit them, and they more or less resemble the other businessmen on the flight. They're in first class on Japan Airlines, because Jiyong had somehow convinced YG to let them spend the company budget on such a luxury. ("He's the President's favourite," Youngbae had explained. "If any one of us had asked him the same, he would have scoffed at us instead.")

Jiyong's even busy talking to another well-dressed man on the flight; the two of them exchanging business cards, or something. Of course, Jiyong's business card is entirely fake, but that doesn't stop him from talking shop with the guy. Seunghyun halts himself from eavesdropping, because he has boundaries, despite what people may think.

Seungri's busy chatting to Seunghyun about How Crazy It Is That We Both Have The Same Name. "Imagine if we both called ourselves Seunghyun!" Seungri says, chuckling to himself. "Absolute madness."

"I mean, we can, you know," Seunghyun offers, because he feels kind of bad for stealing his name, or something.

Seungri shakes his head. "No thanks. I'm not a big fan of losing my identity."

"Um," Seunghyun says.

Thankfully, distraction comes in the form of pretty flight attendants handing him menus for dinner. Seungri refuses the menu and bats his eyelashes at a stewardess instead.

"Can I help you, sir?"

"What if," he says, and Seunghyun already feels bad for the stewardess, "what if you served me a pie made entirely out of caviar."

She blinks.

"You can do that, right?"

"I'm afraid not, sir." she lets out a weak laugh, clearly bewildered at the request. "We have the menu for a reason, after all." She tries to hand back the menu to Seungri, who shakes his head.

"What about rice and caviar?"

"Pardon?"

"An entire plate," he says, miming, "filled with nothing but rice and caviar. Absolutely full of the stuff. I had something like that at Jiyong's, once. Did you know that he keeps jars of caviar in his fridge? Truffle mushrooms, too. It's amazing."

The stewardess looks at him, and says, "let me just contact my colleague to assist you," and promptly leaves.

"I think you scared her off," Seunghyun says, having listened to their entire conversation with great interest.

"Nonsense." Seungri waves a hand. "They know me."

Before Seunghyun can press him any further, though, a tired-looking, yet still extremely beautiful stewardess taps Seungri on the shoulder.

"You again," she says, flatly. "I knew it."

"Yoko-san!" He beams at her, delighted. "Ah, Seunghyun, this is Yoko. We go way back," he says, still smiling at her.

Yoko, on the other hand, is busy scowling at him, and Seunghyun feels himself grinning. "Nice to meet you."

"The same to you," she says, "although I wished that we had met in better circumstances."

"I'm a great circumstance," Seungri says, mock-offended, and Yoko rolls her eyes.

"We can't get you caviar on this flight."

"Why not? You did it the last time."

"That was at my house," Yoko grits out. Seunghyun's ears prick up, because, Wow, Hot News. Yoko stops glaring at Seungri to glare at Seunghyun instead. "It's not what you think."

Seunghyun holds his hands up in a gesture of surrender. "Never said anything of the sort."

"Are you really out of caviar, though?" Seungri presses.

"You finished our entire stock," she says, dryly.

"JAL keeps a stock of caviar onboard?" Seunghyun says.

"No," Yoko says, flatly, at the same time Seungri says, "they can make exceptions."

He leaves the two of them to bicker about caviar or some other equally ridiculous matter in favour of going through their case files for their heist. Seunghyun's always had to do his own intel when he was working alone, so it's nice to have someone do the work for you. Daesung had apologised and said that getting their laptops set up would take a day or two, so he had given the group physical copies of the data they needed.

He idly flips through the yellow pages of the binder titled DISNEYLAND. Underneath the binder's label is a poorly drawn cartoon of an angry looking man with poofy hair. Seunghyun squints.

"Is this supposed to be me," he says, pointing at the cartoon while waving the binder in Daesung's face.

"Yes."

Great, he thinks. He goes back to looking through the binder--it's divided neatly into three sections; general information of their targets, Bigbang's specific roles, and their overall plan to deal with their targets.

There's even a detailed map of Disneyland in the file. Scratch that; they're fucking blueprints. Mickey Mouse's smiling face on every page is a little unsettling, though.

Seunghyun learns that the five of them are supposed to go undercover as businessmen taking a few days off to go around in the Happiest Place On Earth™.

Once they reach the Disneyland resort, though, they're splitting up. Seunghyun's with Jiyong, while the other three become a lean, mean, Japanese-speaking machine. Or a group of their own, to put it simply. They're the ones supposed to do the smooth talking through their mission while Seunghyun and Jiyong run around trying to kill and not get killed.

All in a day's work, really.

Daesung's mostly going to be chilling by the pool or something, due to the fact that he's the group's IT guy. "I'm also going to be stalking you guys to make sure nothing goes wrong," he had clarified, when Seungri had complained that it wasn't fair that he got to do nothing but sit around all day. Which, strictly speaking, isn't true, considering that Seunghyun would rather shoot himself than have to deal with tech, so he has a lot of respect for Daesung, really.

But then he realises that Seungri's just grumbling for the sake of grumbling, so whatever.

Youngbae and Seungri will be busy schmoozing their way through the yakuza.

("We're dealing with the fucking _yakuza?_ " Seunghyun had said, incredulous. Youngbae had shrugged offhandedly, in a sort of, Oh, Life's Tragic, But What Can You Do About It, way.)

As it turns out, Jiyong's the mastermind behind their plan _and_ the group, so Seunghyun's just going to go with whatever he tells him to do. Which he's totally cool with, so it's all good, really.

 

* * *

 

They check into the Disneyland Resort in their little groups: Jiyong and Seunghyun, Youngbae and Seungri, and Daesung in a room on his own.

"You're not rooming with them?" Seunghyun asks, curious.

Daesung shakes his head. "Need all of the electrical outlets." He hoists his backpack over his shoulders and pulls his suitcase. "See ya."

"Right."

Later on in their shared room, Jiyong frowns at him and says, "You're not supposed to interact with them throughout this mission."

"'Mission' sounds like we're a bunch of secret agents, which we're not." Seunghyun says.

Jiyong's frown deepens. "I'm being serious. We're fucked if the yakuza figure out that the five of us are together. Didn't you read the file?"

Seunghyun had admittedly gotten through half of the file before disregarding it completely to watch some weird art house flick on the in-flight entertainment system, but he's not telling Jiyong that.

"I must have missed that part out."

Jiyong narrows his eyes. "I hope YG didn't make a mistake when he brought you into our group."

With that, Jiyong goes over to the single bed closest to the window, leaving Seunghyun to the bed a metre away from the door, and he also wonders for the millionth time whether he's made a mistake too.

Although it's late, sleep doesn't come easy, because he's kept awake by Jiyong quietly muttering to himself as he reads through his plans and works out the logistics of whatever he's looking into.

Seunghyun remembers when he'd spent nights poring over plans alone in his apartment, with a fountain pen in one hand and a crystal glass of whiskey in the other. Him sighing over endless sheets of paper with cigarette smoke curling up from their stubbed counterparts in ashtrays, and okay, so maybe Seunghyun had to do paperwork of his own, but he'd never bothered with it after his kills.

Jiyong is fidgety, though, all bouncing legs and relentless drumming against the surface of the table with his fingertips, and when Seunghyun asks if he's okay, he actually jumps in his seat.

"I'm fine."

"If you need any help, I could..." Seunghyun trails off. He's not exactly sure what he's offering, here.

Judging by jiyong's carefully blank expression, he's not sure, either.

(Jiyong stops fidgeting afterwards, though, and Seunghyun feels himself loosen and go to sleep.)

Seunghyun wakes up the next morning by the sound of water and Jiyong singing in the shower.

It's oddly sweet, and Seunghyun feels as though he's eavesdropping, somehow. so he turns on the television and lets the NHK drown out Jiyong's voice. it's better this way, or so he tells himself.

He's zoning out to the news when Jiyong steps out of the shower, all fluffy haired. he's in a ridiculous Hawaiian shirt that's far too big for him, and Seunghyun thinks he looks--

"Perfect," Jiyong says, with a soft smile, "you're awake."

"I'm awake," Seunghyun echoes.

"I'll go over our plan during breakfast. You can take your time and shower."

 

* * *

 

Breakfast is a typical hotel breakfast--a curious mix of cold ham and cereal and sushi, oddly enough.

Seunghyun had thought that they would have breakfast indoors, but Jiyong had insisted on going downstairs--something about blending in the background so that people couldn't point fingers at them by stating that they were isolated from the rest of the crowd. Or whatever.

Jiyong takes delicate little sips of his orange juice, and Seunghyun fixes his eyes on the curtains behind his head instead.

"So," Jiyong begins, setting his glass down on the table, "we're tourists."

Seunghyun hums his assent through a mouthful of bacon.

"We're mostly going to be shadowing the group while Seungri and Youngbae do most of the talking. We don't have to come in direct contact with the group."

"What's Daesung doing?"

Jiyong shrugs. "The usual. Ever seen the recent Bond films?"

Seunghyun has, in fact, seen the recent Bond films.

"He's something like Q, I suppose."

With that, they go back to their breakfast. They've woken up early enough so that there are only a few families scattered around the dining hall, and most of them look too preoccupied with their own kids to take any real notice of Seunghyun and Jiyong.

It's supposed to be a fairly covert operation, as covert operations go. Seunghyun suspects that Youngbae and Seungri have the harder end of the job, considering that they have to mingle with the men themselves. But maybe this was YG's way of easing him into the group, so he'll take it.

If he'd thought Jiyong's obnoxiously loud Hawaiian shirt was ridiculous, then his own was doubly so. He has an aversion to short sleeves, so he'd paired his shirt by wearing a long-sleeved white undershirt underneath.

"Who even chose our outfits," Seunghyun grumbles, mostly to himself and his scrambled eggs.

"I did," Jiyong says brightly, and huh, that actually explains a lot. He's dyed back his hair to a shade that resembles its original colour, so it's no longer the shocking orange it had previously been. Seunghyun guesses that he's making up for the loss of his bright hair by choosing ridiculously bright outfits.

"Why can't we just wear dark clothing."

"What, do you want to look like a shady gangster man? No," Jiyong says, chewing on his toast thoughtfully, "this is perfect."

"But we _are_ shady gangster men."

"True. But nobody has to know that."

"Right," Seunghyun says, uncertainly.

He gets a text from Daesung, who's linked a bunch of maps of the resort and the park. He tries to discreetly adjust his earpiece and waits for the inevitable instructions to follow, and sure enough, there's a crackling noise, and Daesung's voice comes through.

"Hello," Daesung says. "The both of you should head off to the World Bazaar first, because I've just received a tip back from HQ that they're going to be touring the park in this order: World Bazaar, Adventureland, Westernland, Fantasyland, Critter Country, and Mickey's Toontown." There's a pause, as if he's waiting for the two of them to absorb this information. "You don't have to worry, I'll be constantly updating you on where to go next. But yeah," he says, and there's a sound of keys clacking on a keyboard from his end, "you guys should probably head out now. Just stick around the World Bazaar entryway and wait for further instructions."

With that, the line goes dead, and Jiyong looks up at Seunghyun and taps his own earpiece, and raises an expectant eyebrow.

Seunghyun gives him a weak thumbs up.

Jiyong's shaggy hair covers his earpiece, but Seunghyun's own cropped hair means that they had to come up with a design that would explain a suspicious-looking earpiece. Which, apparently, resulted in the decision to style his earpiece as a hearing aid.

Does his fake disability mean that he can't go on Space Mountain? Fuck, he thinks, Seungri's already rubbing off on him.

Once he's done gulping down the rest of his coffee, he gets to his feet and Jiyong follows. "After you."

"Such a gentleman," Jiyong says, drily, and they head out of the hotel in companionable silence.

It's summer, so the theme park is pretty crowded. They enter the gates with smiles on their faces and stamps on the backs of their hands. Seunghyun stares at the Mickey Mouse logo on his hand, and Mickey Mouse stares back. He shudders. Jiyong gives him a funny look, and Seunghyun shrugs.

"Where to, O Great Leader?" Seunghyun says, peering over Jiyong's shoulder, who has a map outstretched in his hands.

"I'm just trying to find our way to the Bazaar thing."

" _World Bazaar_ ," Seunghyun corrects, and Jiyong gives him a faint smile.

True to Daesung's word, the moment they arrive at the World Bazaar, Daesung's voice comes through loud and clear on their earpieces. "Ground control to Major Tom," he says.

"You're not funny," Jiyong hisses into his clip-on mic on his collar. Daesung just chuckles.

"Anyway. Since the park's just opened, I suggest you two just go wander around the area until they show up."

"You mean we can go on the rides?" Seunghyun says to Daesung, but he's angled toward Jiyong just in case a passerby thinks he's talking to thin air.

"Yes," Daesung says, and Seunghyun can already imagine him grinning.

"Are you serious?" Jiyong says suspiciously, like he expects the both of them to be ambushed by a man in a Donald Duck suit. The aforementioned man in a Donald Duck suit catches his eye and waves at him, and Jiyong glares. Donald Duck quickly breaks eye contact and walks off in the opposite direction.

"Yup," Daesung says, and then there's static, followed by silence.

"So," Seunghyun says, with a smirk, "may I interest you in a grand tour of the World Bazaar?"

"Fuck off."

Despite his initial grumpiness, Seunghyun does, in fact, get Jiyong interested in a Grand Tour of the World Bazaar.

"You do know that this is the shopping area, right," Jiyong says, as they walk down the streets of faux 20th century America. "It's not like we're going to go on a rollercoaster or anything. And we still have to be aware of our surroundings at all times."

"Details, schmetails," Seunghyun says, with a flippant gesture, and Jiyong huffs.

There's a cotton candy stand that sells cotton candy in the shape of Mickey Mouse ears, and just as Seunghyun's eyeing the little stand, Jiyong tugs on the sleeve of his shirt urgently.

"What?"

"Buy me some," Jiyong says, pointing at the stand.

"Have you regressed into an eight year old within the past five minutes?"

Jiyong--he honest to god _pouts_ , and Seunghyun is apparently a Very Weak Man, despite all his posturing, because he finds himself handing money over to the old man who runs the stand in exchange for Jiyong's treat.

"You're not as bad as I thought," Jiyong hums through his mouthful of cotton candy.

Seunghyun pushes his wallet back into his pocket. "Huh?"

"I wasn't too sure about having a new guy enter our group," Jiyong says, tearing off a piece of candy and swallowing it whole. He licks his fingers clean and says, "I hated you. I mean, I still kinda do. It's only been, what, a month since you were here?"

Well, then.

"YG's wanted to recruit you for the past year, but I've always put it off, saying that we didn't need another in the group."

"Then?"

Jiyong shrugs. "I guess we do," he says, and doesn't continue.

So there's that, Seunghyun thinks, as he lets Jiyong drag him around the place, because he's not immune to The Happiest Place On Earth, either.

See, the thing about being a criminal that nobody tells you is that there is a lot of waiting involved, and back when Seunghyun worked on his own, he'd spent endless restless hours wandering around museums and smoking his way through packs of cigarettes on the balcony of his apartment.

Now, though, he's stuck waiting with someone who apparently sort of hates him, or something. Jiyong's unreadable, honestly.

But he doesn't mind, not really, he thinks, as he puts his shades on and squints at the sun.

 

* * *

 

They spend the morning like that--just wandering around, talking about everything and nothing.

Seunghyun learns that Jiyong likes terrible 90s films with dying lovers and suicide. Jiyong learns that Seunghyun had brought 12 bottles of wine to a party, once, as an act of poshness, but managed to pass out after only finishing the second bottle.

Seunghyun learns that Jiyong had found YG through a childhood of petty crime, and that he got out lucky. Jiyong learns that Seunghyun has a passion for art; postmodern art in particular.

And, Seunghyun supposes that it is nice to be able to work with other people after all.

They're in the middle of a heated debate about the best film of the 90s--Jiyong wrongly says Trainspotting, and Seunghyun maintains that Reservoir Dogs is objectively better--when Daesung's voice comes through their headsets, telling them that their targets are in their area.

"You're like that Death Grips song--the one called Hacker," Seunghyun says, facing Jiyong, though he's referring to Daesung. "I'm in your area, duh duh duh," and he plays the rest of the song in his head.

"Death Grips? Hacker?" Daesung says, clearly confused, and Jiyong snorts out a laugh.

"Never mind him," Jiyong says. "Where are we supposed to be?"

They end up idly sipping on their overpriced iced tea in an American-style diner while they wait for their burgers and fries to come. Daesung had said that the yakuza (Seunghyun still can't wrap his head around the fact that he's dealing with the _yakuza_ in _Disneyland_ , what the fuck) would be having their meeting in the very same diner.

As if on cue, when their food makes their way to their table, a group enters the diner. Seunghyun takes note of the way one of them seems to have their eyes darting around the room, and he texts Daesung for confirmation.

Daesung's voice comes through his earpiece with a, "what, them? God, no. you're supposed to be looking for the group arriving in...three, two, one," he counts down, and Seunghyun turns his attention to the front door, where a group of not very inconspicuous men walk in with briefcases, because apparently subtlety isn't a thing anymore.

"That's them," Daesung says cheerily, and the line goes dead.

"What," Seunghyun says, and Jiyong shrugs.

"To be fair, the yakuza are legal in Japan." He mouths the word 'yakuza', which makes Seunghyun snort out a laugh. Very secret, indeed.

"What now?"

"We eat," Jiyong says, digging into his hamburger. Huh. Seunghyun's not going to go against his orders, and besides, the burger does look great. They make sure to talk in low murmurs when they do, but for the most part, it's silent between them.

Jiyong scarfs down his meal, which is a sight that Seunghyun hadn't really expected. He manages to finish faster than Seunghyun, and once Seunghyun's done with his own burger and Jiyong's left picking on his fries, he looks up meaningfully at Seunghyun.

"What."

"We can get the bill soon." Jiyong says.

"But shouldn't we wait out--"

"It’s not necessary," Jiyong says, firmly this time, and then, switching to Japanese, "I'm going to the restroom."

Seunghyun blinks at him, uncomprehending. Jiyong gets up from his seat and digs his hands into his pockets. In order to get to the toilet, he has to pass the yakuza's table, but just as he passes their table, he crashes into a waitress roughly. She's carrying a milkshake, which is thankfully in a plastic mason jar, because the milkshake falls all over the floor.

"Ah, I'm so sorry," Jiyong says to her, and he holds a hand out to her for support, while grasping the back of the chair where the yakuza are sat. Jiyong smiles sheepishly and offers to clean up the mess he's caused, but the waitress laughs it off and says it's not a problem. Seunghyun supposes that Jiyong could charm his way through anything.

The yakuza look a little disgruntled at the fact that whatever they'd been discussing had gotten cut off, but they do ask Jiyong and the waitress whether they're okay, which is nice, given the circumstances, Seunghyun considers.

Jiyong quickly makes his way to the restroom and disappears for a couple of minutes while the waitress dutifully mops up the mess.

When Jiyong returns, he's acting as if nothing has happened, but there's a glint in his eye this time around. "Let's ask for the bill," he says, and Seunghyun agrees.

Once they're out of the restaurant, decidedly away from earshot, Seunghyun turns to Jiyong so fast he almost feels as though he could get whiplash. "What was that about? Why did you leave so soon when we were supposed to listen in on them?"

"I thought you'd figure it out," Jiyong says, all faux innocence.

"You're giving me too much credit."

Jiyong shrugs and smiles. "I planted trackers and listening devices on them, that's all."

"What?" Seunghyun says, and then he _gets it_. "You did that when you were busy crashing into that poor waitress," he says, accusingly, and Jiyong honest-to-God giggles, delighted.

"I told you," Jiyong says, "I'm a _professional_."

"You are something, Kwon Jiyong," he replies, not even bothering to hide the admiration in his voice.

The thing is, when YG had described Seunghyun as a hitman, he was entirely, literally, correct. He hits men. He gets a contract, and he goes wham bam thank you ma'am, and then boom, the guy's dead, and Seunghyun gets money deposited into his account in Switzerland the very next day.

He's like the yakuza having a business meeting in Disneyland in broad daylight.

In other words: he's not subtle.

He's in awe of how Jiyong weaves his way through a crowd and gets out in one piece, bringing a sack of metaphorical gold with him, is what he's saying.

Jiyong just smiles at him and taps his mic to activate it. "Got it?"

"Yup," Daesung says through the earpiece, speaking to Seunghyun as well for his benefit. "Honestly, the two of you are done for the day. Seungri and Youngbae will take care of the rest."

Jiyong says his thanks, and he turns to Seunghyun. "Space Mountain?"

"You fucking bet."

 

* * *

 

They go on Space Mountain four times. Jiyong had wanted them to go for a fifth time, but Seunghyun had walked dizzily over to a trash bin and dry-heaved while Jiyong laughed at him; even going as far to wipe invisible tears from his eyes.

"You're too much," Seunghyun says, once he's felt like he's regained some semblance of stability.

"That's what all my exes tell me," Jiyong says, and Seunghyun wheezes. "What next?"

"No more rides," Seunghyun says, seriously, and so they settle on queuing up for a tour around the park. They'll be shuttled around a replica train of the 1920s, so it's not as though they have to physically walk. If he gets the day off, Seunghyun thinks, he's not fucking walking.

And so they're waiting in line, and Jiyong's busy chattering away as if he hadn't told Seunghyun a few hours ago that he'd still harboured some sort of hatred for Seunghyun. Which is a little weird, but 'a little weird' is what he signed up for, so he's mostly fine with it, he supposes.

(In all seriousness, his contract had included the sentence, "this job is a little weird," which makes Seunghyun wonder what kind of person YG even is.)

When the line moves forward, he has the distinct feeling that he's being watched. He feels his blood run cold. Jiyong still continues talking to him, happily oblivious, and Seunghyun doesn't feel like bursting his bubble, at least not yet. So he stretches and yawns and takes the opportunity to scope out the area to look for whatever's out for him.

"What's wrong with you?" Jiyong says.

Fuck. Seunghyun really needs to work on his subtlety.

"I think there's someone watching us," he mutters, and Jiyong's eyes widen.

Seunghyun stays ramrod stiff in his position while Jiyong looks around.

After a while, Jiyong turns to him and slouches. "You idiot," Jiyong says, huffing. "You had me genuinely concerned."

"What?" Seunghyun hisses.

A familiar platinum blonde head hovers into view, and, oh, Seunghyun _is_ a fucking idiot.

"It's just Seungri, you ass." Jiyong says.

"It's a small world after all?" Seunghyun says weakly.

The line moves forward, and soon enough, they're being ushered into the train. Seungri's a few carriages behind, presumably with Youngbae. Maybe they got too tired to walk themselves around. Not that Seunghyun judges them or anything, he thinks, staring at his socked feet in adidas sandals.

Their tour guide prattles on about their almighty Lord and saviour, Walt Disney, and there's a story about Americans and the Japanese working together in perfect harmony to construct the park, or something, and then there's this weird smooth jazz track accompanying the tour guide's monologue, and there's a lot of greenery as they enter a shaded area, and Seunghyun feels himself drift off and--

"--Wake up, asshole," a voice says to him, thoroughly pissed off.

"Let me sleep for five minutes," Seunghyun mumbles, batting away at the air. No, batting away at a human...hand? "Jiyong," Seunghyun says, stupidly, and Jiyong rolls his eyes.

"Yeah, Captain Obvious. We're reaching the final stop."

"How long was I out?"

"Two hours," Jiyong says, flatly, but there's a telltale twitch to the corner of his lips, so maybe he's not as aggravated as he's making himself out to be.

"I can't believe I spent my day off taking a nap."

"We still have around 3 hours until the fireworks show," Jiyong says, pulling out his phone to check the time. "If you wanna stay around for that." He says the latter dismissively, as if he isn't excited, but fuck that. Fireworks are brilliant.

"Fuck yes," Seunghyun says, and Jiyong beams, like Seunghyun's said the right thing. Which, of course he has, because, fireworks.

The tour guide thanks them for being pleasant human beings, or something, although there are only around five or so of them left, including Seunghyun and Jiyong.

They dutifully climb off the train and Jiyong even does a little jump as he lands on the ground.

"Where to next?"

 

* * *

 

They meet Daesung in his room later on after dinner, as well as after an objectively fantastic fireworks show.

("Fireworks are the coolest kind of explosion," Jiyong had said, which makes Seunghyun wonder about other kinds of explosions he's seen.)

"I thought," Seunghyun says, shooting Jiyong a Pointed Look, "that we weren't supposed to communicate."

"Not really," Daesung says, "but I wanted to talk about the trackers Jiyong had placed on the yakuza."

Jiyong smiles smugly at Seunghyun, because life is unfair, and there is no winning.

Daesung's converted his room to some sort of tech lair that could easily rival those in films. There are wires everywhere, and there are three laptops open; one running Windows, the other a Mac, and one weird-looking one that Seunghyun's not too sure of. Daesung catches Seunghyun looking, and he says, "that's a Linux."

"A what?"

"You've never heard of Linux?"

"Why do you even have three laptops," Seunghyun says instead, deflecting. He takes a seat on the plush armchair next to the cluttered desk, and Jiyong copies his movement by occupying the chair next to him.

Daesung shrugs. "Why do people have more than one car?"

"What?"

"Anyway," Jiyong interrupts, "talk us through."

"Oh, yeah." Daesung rubs the side of his face. "Rumour has it that the yakuza are working on some sort of deal with the Hong Kong triads."

"We know that," Jiyong says.

"Yeah, but what we just found out today was that the triads are going to double cross the yakuza. Like some sort of bad movie," Daesung adds, thoughtfully. "And if that happens, then we're fucked, because YG has some sort of coalition formed with both of them, and if one betrays the other, then the whole coalition collapses. It's all very dramatic, but unfortunately very serious business, as comical as it sounds."

"Like the First World War, when the archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot and everything went to hell," Seunghyun supplies.

Daesung and Jiyong give him a funny look.

"Wait, how do you know that the yakuza's being double crossed?" Seunghyun says.

"The yakuza suspect that someone amongst them is a mole, and I'm guessing that they said it out loud to try and see who was the most suspicious amongst them." Daesung says.

"Wait, let me get this straight: the triads have a mole in the yakuza who's going to sabotage their deal with the triads," Seunghyun says.

"Like an undercover cop kinda situation, except there are no cops involved."

Seunghyun nods. "Right, so this mole's determined on ruining whatever relationship the yakuza's built with the triad. And once he does that, the triad can blame the yakuza for damaging their deal, and therefore severe all ties with them. Which is bad, because we want them to stay together for YG."

"They have to stay together for the kids," Daesung says. At Jiyong's withering look, he adds, "you know, because we're the kids in this--"

"I get it," Jiyong says. "How are we supposed to stop them?"

Daesung wrinkles his nose. "I dunno. This whole situation is more complex than we initially thought."

"I have something in mind," Seunghyun says.

Jiyong raises an expectant eyebrow and Daesung says, "go ahead."

"So we plant Seungri into the the yakuza, right, and we say that he's the mole. We can then give an anonymous tip to them or whatever, saying that we know who's the mole. Not the real guy--we'll say it's Seungri. We'll deal with the real mole ourselves."

"What, so the yakuza can think that they've eliminated their problem, and no one gets hurt?" Jiyong says, slowly. "I like that."

"How can we make sure that Seungri doesn't get killed, though," Daesung says.

"Stage his disappearance? I dunno. The yakuza aren't going to care much about some random guy who've they've just met disappearing." Seunghyun offers.

"Well," Daesung says, "that honestly sounds like our best option as of now." he pauses. "Why Seungri, though?"

Seunghyun shifts in his seat. "His file said that he was the conman of the group."

"So you did read the file," Jiyong says, with a hint of approval.

"Yeah, so I figured that he would be up for the job, if it comes to it."

"What the hell," Daesung says, "let's do this."

They go through the rest of their briefing.

Seunghyun finds out that Seungri had introduced himself as some sort of foreign investor or some other who was interested in the yakuza. They decide to go along with his story, so instead of planting Seungri in the depths of the yakuza for an internal betrayal, they can just stage an external force threatening to disrupt the general peace.

"It's safer this way, anyway," Daesung confirms, and Seunghyun nods. "Staging his disappearance will look more natural."

Seunghyun bids them goodbye shortly afterwards, due to the fact that they had sort of kicked him out, anyway. He assumes that they're busy discussing a backup plan or something.

With that, he heads to his room, whistling tunelessly.

 

* * *

 

Breakfast the following morning is pretty uneventful, save for Seunghyun being hit on by a Chinese tourist while Jiyong laughs into his fist.

Since Seungri's already introduced himself to the yakuza as a foreign investor, the rest are waiting for him to gain their trust so that the rest of their plan can be carried out. Youngbae's going with Seungri, posing as his right-hand man--and also as backup, should their plan fall through.

"Why don't they just tell the yakuza the truth and say that YG doesn't want their relationship to be at stake?" Seunghyun says, while they're walking out of the hotel.

Jiyong snorts. "They'll want to seek for revenge that way, or some sort of vindicative brand of justice." he shakes his head. "It's better for them to think that they've been compromised by an external force rather than an internal one. Sure, they'll be cautious either way once they find out that there's a mole within them, but if they can blame it on an outsider, then they can unite with the triads over a common enemy. At least, that's what we're hoping for."

As if reading Seunghyun's mind, Jiyong laughs and adds, "don't worry, I'm also finding it to be pretty convoluted as well."

"It's just different from what I'm used to," Seunghyun says.

"Were you involved in heists and such when you were working without an employer?"

Seunghyun shakes his head. "Mostly just contract killings. Never really delved into the personal lives of our victims. Unlike what we're doing now, I suppose."

"So you disapprove of all the information that we have on our targets?"

"It's not that," Seunghyun sighs. "It's just far more easier to just put a gun to someone's head when you know next to nothing about them."

"But YG usually gives us jobs that aren't just all about killing, which is why we get all the intel that we get."

"I'm not against it, or anything. it's just all new to me, that's all." With that closing statement, Seunghyun lights a cigarette and takes a haughty drag, before exhaling away from Jiyong. "Do you mind if I smoke?"

"It's a bit late for that," Jiyong says, with a wry smirk, "but no, go ahead." after a beat, he clears his throat and says, "so you were a hitman, yeah."

"You've read my file, I'm pretty sure you know the answer to that."

"Well. Yeah."

"It's not as glamorous as people think," Seunghyun says, which earns him an amused look by Jiyong.

"I don't think killing is exactly a 'glamorous' sort of ideal."

"Well, no, but I've found that death holds a certain kind of quality to it. Particularly when you're in charge of someone's death. Most people haven't come to grips with their own mortality. It's just," he says, tapping his cigarette and watching ash float away, "it's not _intoxicating_ or anything, to be able to wield a certain kind of power, but it just kind of, I don't know. I've seen people piss themselves seconds before death, I've had people desperately clinging onto my legs before death, but what I found the most unnerving was this one time where I had to kill this painter. Whatever." he sucks at his cigarette harshly. "He was completely at ease when he was staring down the barrel of my gun."

There's a pause. "That's a bit morbid."

"This job is morbid," Seunghyun points out.

"Your face is morbid," Jiyong shoots back.

"Okay, maybe."

It's funny, Seunghyun thinks, that after his pseudo existential crisis, he feels as though a weight has been lifted.

 

* * *

 

Seunghyun's past had gone something like this:

slipping into apartment windows in the dark, clutching onto a glock, walking into bedrooms, pointing guns at unwilling heads;

shots going off, muffled by the gun's silencer, and nothing left but mute silence and emptiness on the drive home.

him moving from city to city, burning all traces of his own identity, going from one false passport to the next.

framed photos of strangers in his temporary house. empty refrigerators. broken pipes and dusty kitchen counters.

\--having a crew, being grounded, takes him away from his sleepless medicated nights.

So when Seunghyun stares wearily at the ceiling at 3 am, he's more than a little annoyed, because he'd thought that he could get some sleep at the very least, now.

With that thought in his head, he feels his body immediately perking up, as if he's actively conspiring himself, and he sighs as he rubs his face.

The room's dark, save for the bathroom light seeping through the closed door. He fumbles for his packet of cigarettes and his lighter on his nightstand, and he gets out of bed and puts on a pair of slippers.

When he pushes the balcony’s sliding door open, he's not expecting Jiyong to be out there himself. Jiyong's wearing the hotel bathrobe; lazily smoking a cigarette as he stares out into the night sky.

"Hi," Seunghyun says, closing the door behind them, and then, "I didn't know you smoked."

"You never asked," Jiyong says, exhaling.

Seunghyun leans on the balcony wall a few feet away from him and lights his own cigarette. He inhales and exhales slowly, as if he's waiting for Jiyong to break the silence.

Jiyong does. "Couldn't sleep?"

"Pretty much."

Jiyong turns to face him, and takes a drag on his cigarette, before saying, "you're not nervous or anything, are you?" His tone is light, but Seunghyun feels as though there's an undercurrent of genuine concern there.

Or maybe he's projecting, he thinks ruefully.

Seunghyun shakes his head instead of saying anything, and Jiyong hums.

"I remember my first run-in with the yakuza."

Seunghyun's never worked for or against the yakuza, so he's unable to play down his interest when he says, "go on."

"I was just a kid, then. I had only been with YG for two--no, three years. He'd told me to investigate their koi business."

"Koi?" Seunghyun splutters.

Jiyong grins. "Their whole koi business was just a cover-up for a bigger scheme. It was either drug trafficking or money laundering. Maybe both," he says, more to himself than anything, before shaking his head. "Whatever. It’s not important. I remember being scared of their tattoos and shit. But what I'm trying to say is that I guess it must suck that your first heist is overseas, not at home." Jiyong shrugs.

"Wow, that's such a comforting thought," Seunghyun says drily.

Jiyong giggles; an unselfconscious sound, while he reaches his hand up to his face to dab away at his invisible sweat. A nervous tic, Seunghyun notes, and immediately wonders why he's even noticing such things.

"That's not what I meant," Jiyong says. "I mean that you're--you're in good hands now," he says. "I know I said that I hate you and whatever, and I still do, kinda," he says, and Seunghyun raises his eyebrows at that, "but think of us as your family, you know? I couldn't go for years working alone, just blowing people's brains out. Couldn't do it. You're stronger than you think." Jiyong inhales on his cigarette shakily. "Oh god, I'm rambling."

Seunghyun chuckles at that, and he says, "no, really, thanks," and Jiyong laughs a little and they both lean back against the balcony railings and walls a little easier.

Jiyong watches the dark clouds moving furtively across the sky and Seunghyun watches Jiyong, watches the way Jiyong dangles his cigarette between two fingers, watches the way his hand comes up to idly scratch at his tattooed shoulder.

He breathes out, and the night continues.

 

* * *

 

A week later, they get confirmation that Seungri is comfortably wedged in the depths of the yakuza, or something.

("I'm practically their family, now," Seungri had said over the phone, and Seunghyun had replied with a faint, "sure," while Youngbae groaned in the background.)

They're supposed to dress sharply for the occasion--Daesung says that they're supposed to meet up with the triad's mole in order to extort him.  Apparently, said mole had an extensive history of stealing drugs from both the yakuza and the triads, so it would be best for everyone if he were ‘quietly removed’.

If Seunghyun's being honest, though, the only real reason why they're in black tie is because Jiyong had taken offense to Daesung's off-hand remark wherein he'd called them 'kkangpae'. Jiyong also gets suits personally selected by Karl Lagerfeld, so Jiyong's clearly the fashion-forward one out of the entire group, which is how Seunghyun finds himself struggling with his goddamn tie.

Seunghyun looks into the mirror and fumbles with his crooked tie while Jiyong's busy adjusting his cuff links. Apparently, it's enough to distract Jiyong, who looks up at Seunghyun with amusement.

"Do you seriously not know how to tie a knot?"

"Of course I do," Seunghyun says, and tightens it around his neck. In all honesty, it's looking less than stellar, but he supposes that'll do.

"Here," Jiyong huffs, apparently irritated at his ugly tie tying skills, or something. He reaches up to Seunghyun and gently eases it off him; his breath warm against Seunghyun's chest. "Let me do it for you."

It's all terribly cliché and shit, and Seunghyun's seen far too many romantic comedies with his exes that feature stupid scenes like this, but that doesn't stop from his heart feeling as if it's beating twice as fast. Seunghyun hates himself.

When Jiyong finishes tying it for him, he smoothens Seunghyun's shirt, as if he's pleased with his own handiwork.

"Thanks," Seunghyun says, but his voice betrays him and he sounds like he's warbling throatily more than anything.

Jiyong just smiles sunnily at him, though, so there's that.

Seunghyun snaps out of his reverie thanks to his phone buzzing in his pocket. There's a text from Youngbae describing how Seungri had convinced the yakuza that he would bring a merger deal from a cocaine cartel in Colombia to Japan. Seunghyun's generally avoided hard drugs throughout his line of work, so when he finds out that Youngbae had not texted Jiyong the specifics of Seungri's cover, he starts to wonder.

Jiyong, after all, is their group's supposed leader. Seunghyun says 'supposed' because he's not exactly had an opportunity to see Jiyong direct the rest of the group, seeing as they're split up for now.

If anything, Seunghyun's supposed to get _less_ information, seeing as he's the New Guy in the group.

He pockets his phone and drums his fingers on his thighs. Jiyong is stretching behind him. He feels as though he's lost his footing, somehow.

They meet the mole in a shitty ramen bar far, far away from Disneyland. (Daesung had recommended that no murders occurred anywhere near one of the Happiest Places on Earth™). Seunghyun had almost complained that they were overdressed for the meeting, but he's broken into buildings wearing three piece suits in the past, so never mind, he's just a hypocrite.

The mole--or, Kabuto Taro--is a twenty something young man with badly bleached hair. He has tattooed knuckles and five piercings in each ear. Some sort of J-rock track is being blasted through his earphones which bleed, and Seunghyun hates him on sight.

"Listen, punk," he says loudly, slamming down on the table while other customers in the restaurant look at him disapprovingly. He quickly bows apologetically and lowers his voice. "Listen, punk."

Taro looks at him with a raised eyebrow and slurps more ramen noodles into his mouth. "Yes?"

Jiyong's busy stuffing edamame beans into his mouth to even notice. Goddammit, Seunghyun thinks, as he nudges Jiyong urgently.

"I'm the bad cop, you're the good cop, remember?" Seunghyun says, addressing Jiyong in Korean in the hopes that Taro won't understand.

Taro just looks at them disinterestedly and continues eating.

"Ah," Jiyong says, dabbing at the corner of his lips with a paper napkin, and then he turns to Taro, saying, "You'd better take him seriously, you know."

"I don't even know why I'm here," Taro says.

"Uh," Seunghyun grunts, at the same time Jiyong goes, "Because we know you've been secretly taking drugs that belong to the yakuza to make a profit."

"Ah," Taro says, and then he throws his bowl of ramen into Seunghyun's face and crashes a few chairs as he quickly runs out of the restaurant.

"Motherfucker!" Seunghyun yells; hot broth in his eyes, and Jiyong laughing his ass off isn't helping either. "Fucking chase him, oh my god."

Jiyong nods, still giggling, and darts out of the restaurant, leaving Seunghyun to follow in suit. He's not much of a runner himself--he prefers to eliminate his targets from a distance, so he's praying that Jiyong's able to catch Taro for him. This is his excuse as he throws down money on the table to cover their bill while wheezing as he tries to keep up with the both of them.

As it turns out, Jiyong weaves through crowds effortlessly without seeming to even break a sweat, because of course he does. He runs through the night market, dodging stalls left and right as he yells at Taro while Seunghyun lags behind.

"Sorry," he says, to a disgruntled old man who he pushes out of the way. "Catch him," he yells at Jiyong, who's a good ten metres or so in front of him.

Taro leads them to a narrow alley, which is his biggest mistake: this way, he's unable to throw Seunghyun and Jiyong off by using other people as distractions. Of course, Seunghyun is proven wrong as Taro nimbly climbs up the walls of the alley's dead end.

Jiyong is thankfully hot on his trail, and he manages to grab Taro's leg mid-climb to send the both of them crashing down.

"Are you two cops?" Taro says, panting, with his hands in the air. He wheezes and looks upwards to the sky in a gesture of defeat.

"No," Jiyong says, "we're just here to ask you some questions."

Seunghyun finally catches up to them and pauses to stop for a breath; lungs heaving as he bends over and puts his hands on his thighs. "We just," he says, breath short, "need you for a couple of seconds."

"Who the fuck are you?" Taro says, eyes wide. It's the first time he's indicated any sign of fear all night.

Seunghyun holds up a finger, and coughs, before saying, "Do you mind if we take you back and ask you some questions?"

Taro spits onto the ground. "Fuck you."

Seunghyun sighs. "Now's not the time for fake bravado. We know that you haven't just been sneaking around with kilograms of cocaine that aren't your own."

"That's right, Kabuto Taro, or, should I say," Jiyong taps on his lips thoughtfully, "Zhang Wei Shen?"

"What," Seunghyun says, before realising that he is a mole for the triads after all, and also that he really needs to read up on his case files. Really. He feels so behind.

"I haven't done anything," Taro--Wei Shen? Probably the latter, Seunghyun supposes--cries out.

"Do you have another name that we're not aware of?" Seunghyun says, pulling out his gun and waving it in front of Wei Shen's face.

Wei Shen looks like he's about to shit himself. Jiyong looks like he's about to shit on Seunghyun.

"He doesn't, you idiot," Jiyong says, looking at Seunghyun, and then, "Listen, Wei Shen? It's been nice meeting you and all, but we can't have you jeopardising the whole relationship between the triads and the yakuza. Because we would be out of our jobs, won't we, TOP?"

"Sure," Seunghyun says, not quite following, but he still scowls at Wei Shen just because he made him run a million miles, or whatever.

"I'll quit the triads, fuck, just leave me alone," Wei Shen says, voice shaky. "Please."

(They end up shooting him dead in that very same alley. Jiyong dry-heaves upon seeing Wei Shen's skull blown open; red spurting upwards against the wall, and Seunghyun withdraws his gun with shaky hands.)

"I hate the sight of blood," Jiyong says, later on that night.

Seunghyun rolls over in his bed to face Jiyong. "You'll get used to it."

 

* * *

 

Seungri says that it'll take him another week to close on the faux deal. He has Youngbae with him as his acting right-hand man, who then tells the rest of them to wait.

So they all wait; Daesung busy holed up in his room, tapping away at keyboards, Jiyong splitting his time between Daesung and actually going out to explore Disneyland.

Seunghyun's pretty much stuck on his own.

It's worth saying again that the thing about being a criminal is that you have to wait a lot.

For instance, Seunghyun finds himself waiting in some shitty bar nearby the hotel. The bar has an interesting juxtaposition of overpriced drinks and trashy clientele, and he sips on his glass of wine with a little disdain.

"Who even drinks wine at a bar?" A female voice says from next to him.

He turns to face her--she's all long legs and bright red lipstick and spiky, short hair, and she smiles at him when they make eye contact. She's young, and yet there's a sort of harshness to her eyes.

"I do," he says, and swirls his glass around to allow the wine breathe. (He'd gone to a wine tasting class and a man with a moustache and a monocle had told him to do so, so he's doing it now, pretentiousness be damned.)

"I'll have a gin and tonic, myself," she says to the bartender hovering by them.

Seunghyun raises his glass to hers, once it's in her hands. "Cheers."

She grins and downs her drink at an impressive speed.

"I don't think you're supposed to do that."

She shrugs. "Nobody here cares," she says, gesturing at the people splayed on the sofas near them.

The girl gets another drink, while Seunghyun sips on his own idly before it hits him. "How did you know I was Korean?"

"Sorry?"

"You spoke to me in Korean," he says slowly, "but we're in Tokyo."

She shrugs; an odd little one-shouldered movement. "Just a hunch. I'm Ayumi, by the way."

"T.O.P," he replies, dimly aware of how ridiculous his code name sounds.

"Nice to meet you," she says, and then, "so, what are you doing out here?"

"I just put the kids to bed," he finds himself saying.

She quirks her lips. "You're not wearing a wedding ring."

"I'm a single father."

"Ah," she nods, as if she wants to press further, but knows that it's impolite to do so.

Seunghyun feels as though he might as well add to his fake identity, so he says, "she died in a car accident not too long ago." Rest in peace, he thinks, to his imaginary dead wife. "Decided that my kids and I needed some time away from home, you know? Get some fresh air."

"I'm not so sure that Disneyland is a place to get fresh air."

"My kids insisted on going," he says, really getting into it now. "The youngest one--Soonha--he really loves Disney, you know?"

"Of course," she says, and then she taps at the side of his glass. "You've been stuck with that one glass for far too long."

"I am not," he says, and he chugs the rest of his wine down, as if to prove a point. He's not sure what he's doing, here, but by Ayumi's startled laugh, he's got to be doing something right.

This is how he finds himself in a drinking contest with a girl he barely knows--God, she must be barely twenty--and he throws caution to the wind. Absolutely tosses out any semblance of sense. He's practically inviting the mother of all hangovers to greet him the following morning, but for now, he's content with knocking back drink after drink.

The thing is, Seunghyun likes to fancy himself as a sort of, well-rounded, cultured man. He didn't exactly excel in school, but he made up for that in his adult life through his extensive knowledge of modern art and furniture.

His apartment has three Eames chairs lying around; he's auctioned for paintings in his spare time, and he's read a lot of Wikipedia articles about art. He's practically a museum of knowledge when it comes to art. Seunghyun is _cultured_ , goddammit.

"I'm cultured," he tells Ayumi seriously through his seventh--eighth? shot of tequila. God, he hates tequila with a burning passion. Why are they having tequila?

Ayumi, on the other hand, is knocking back shots like there's no tomorrow. God knows what her liver must be like, he thinks mournfully.

"You're losing," she says, helpfully.

"I," Seunghyun says, staring down at his glass as though his drink had personally betrayed him, "I can't believe this is happening to me. I drank twelve bottles," he says, stumbling on 'bottles', "of wine. Twelve!" He holds up all ten of his fingers.

"That's ten."

"Imagine that I have twelve fingers."

"Right."

"I had twelve bottles and I drank them all! Once! At a party!" Seunghyun says indignantly. "I can't be losing! Not when my pride is on the line."

"You've lost all semblance of pride ages ago, my friend," she says, patting him on the shoulder. "Come on. Maybe it's time for you to go home to your kids."

"I have kids?" He says, holding a hand to his head. The world is spinning. God help him.

"One's named Soonha," she says, and he swears she's either being sarcastic or patronising. Maybe both. He barely knows her. Oh god, he's drunk, and he barely knows her.

"I'm drunk and I barely know you," he blurts out.

"Let's just get you home," she says, hauling him upwards. She's surprisingly tall; nearly coming up to his ears. Maybe she's wearing heels. He looks down. No heels.

"Do you play basketball?"

"What?"

"You're so tall," he mumbles. He mimes a shot in the air. "Slam dunk. Michael Jordan. Tina Turner. Oh yeah baby."

"We really need to get you home."

She's tall enough to support him without that much effort, and when they make their way to Seunghyun's room, she lets Seunghyun go so that he slumps against the door, exhausted.

There's a click before the door opens, and Seunghyun falls to the floor after he's lost his balance. "Jiyongie," he giggles, beaming.

"Hello," Jiyong replies, and then, "who's this?"

"I'm Ayumi," she says, smoothening her dress before doing a little bow. "We were just at the bar nearby and your friend here had a little too much to drink."

"I'm fine," Seunghyun says, from the floor. "It's alright. No damage done."

"Please get up," jiyong says, exasperated. He turns to Ayumi and thanks her, and she only does her one-shouldered shrug before waving goodbye.

The sound of her heels clacking against the floor grow fainter as she walks further away from them. Once she's out of sight, Jiyong hauls Seunghyun into the room, saying, "what have you gotten into this time?"

"She's a friend," Seunghyun says, after a moment's consideration, and then, "also, I'm really, really drunk."

"She's a member of the yakuza," Jiyong groans, putting his head into his hands.

Seunghyun blinks. "What?"

"Did you somehow miss her gigantic tattoo spread across her back?"

"Her back was covered," Seunghyun says.

"She was wearing a _backless dress_."

"The bar was dark," Seunghyun says weakly.

Jiyong looks at him wearily and sighs, before stiffening. "Did she...touch you?"

"What?"

"I mean," Jiyong stutters, "you could be, um, bugged. Was there anything suspicious about her?"

"Ask me again tomorrow," Seunghyun says, because the bed is looking far more enticing than having to listen to Jiyong's nagging. Sorry, Jiyong, he thinks, as he hauls himself upwards and stumbles towards his bed. It's blissfully soft. Thank God.

"I'm being serious, Seunghyun. We don't know what she could've done to you."

"Right," Seunghyun says, voice muffled through his castle of pillows, "in that case, you can take my clothes and search through," he hiccups, "as you wish."

"I don't--"

Seunghyun removes his suit jacket gracelessly and tosses it to a corner of the room.

"I'm not your maid," Jiyong grumbles, but he dutifully picks it up anyway and starts examining it to see if there's anything off.

"My tie's coming off next," Seunghyun says, sitting up on the bed, "and my shirt."

"We can take care of your shirt tomorrow," Jiyong says, waving his hands about. "There's no real need--"

"Goodbye, shirt," Seunghyun bellows, and promptly passes out from all the exhaustion.

 

* * *

 

 

Seunghyun wakes up to the Mother of All Headaches, and he lurches to the side of the bed, dry-heaving. "Fuck," he says, weakly, and the rankness of his breath makes him regret even talking in the first place.

"Good morning, sunshine," Jiyong says, head tilted, standing next to Seunghyun's bed. The first thing Seunghyun notices is Jiyong's eyeliner, and the second is Jiyong's outrageously loud Hawaiian shirt, and seriously, how many does he even own? complete with matching trousers.  

"Kill me," Seunghyun says, shielding his eyes from Jiyong's ridiculous attire, which has at least twenty dragons, oddly enough, stitched into the fabric.

"Ayumi will probably do that for me."

"She's not," Seunghyun says, and then, "wait, did you find anything last night."

The night in question is coming back to him; hazy fragments of yelling over shots and hassling bartenders and just him being an ass, really.

Jiyong pulls out a metallic device from his pocket and tosses it from one hand to another. It's small enough to fit in his palm, and he says, "guess what I found on your shirt."

"Fuck." Seunghyun flops down on the bed dramatically. "How did that even get there."

"I had it checked out with Daesung. It's not a tracker that picks up on audio, so we're fine for now."

"What does it do, then," Seunghyun says wearily.

"It only tracks locations," Jiyong says. "She knows that we're here, now. I can't immediately deactivate it, because that'll just draw suspicion to us. She'll wonder how you found her out so quickly." He pauses. "What did you tell her last night, exactly?"

"Nothing incriminating," Seunghyun protests. "Wait, fuck."

Jiyong raises his eyebrows so far up they probably reach his hairline. "What did you do."

"I told her I was married and I had kids." He groans into his palms.

"That's fine, as covers go," Jiyong says slowly, as if he's assessing the damage that Seunghyun could have possibly done over the span of one night.

Seunghyun points at Jiyong. "She saw you, though."

"How old did you say that your were?"

"I didn't specify," Seunghyun says, and then, "what if she thinks you're my teenage son?"

"The both of us are almost thirty years old, for one thing, you fuck."

"Right."

“The other thing is that I somehow seriously doubt that a member of the yakuza would believe any sort of shitty lie thrown at them."

"Also right."

Jiyong sighs, and says, "I'll go ask Youngbae if he knows of anyone named Ayumi," and Seunghyun nods, and says, "okay," and Jiyong goes, "you're an idiot, you know that," and all Seunghyun can do is nod again and ignore his truly terrible headache.

While Jiyong's gone, Seunghyun opens his laptop and sifts through the case files that Daesung had supplied them with. There are a ridiculous number of files on the history of Space Mountain, oddly enough, and Seunghyun wonders whether Seungri had specifically requested Daesung to include them on their cloud of data.

What he's looking for, though, is the folder on the yakuza, which is impossibly large in size. There are hundreds of subcategories within, and he seriously doubts whether he'll be able to uncover anything more on Ayumi, if he's even able to in the first place.

Ayumi's probably not even her real name, Seunghyun thinks, and he curses under his breath as he scrolls through the files. Daesung is thankfully organised in his work, so it's not though as if Seunghyun has to wade through thousands of unnamed JPEGs of whatever.

There's a folder conveniently titled People of Interest, and Seunghyun opens it to find different subfolders, one of which is named Newcomers.

Seunghyun is guessing that Ayumi belongs in that folder, after taking her age into consideration. He has to start somewhere, after all, and with a heavy heart, he begins trawling through what seems to be an endless set of data. There are files of all sorts inside--documents of crime done by said newcomers, photos of varying quality, from RAW files to blurry JPEGs of grainy mugshots. There's a spreadsheet with the title TAXES, which makes Seunghyun cringe at the thought of Daesung having to take on the job of an accountant as well as being their IT guy.

He spends ages trying to dig up information, but he finds nothing on Ayumi, and he's left glaring at the screen of his laptop. Jiyong enters the room, and Seunghyun has never felt so relieved to see him.

"You have to help me out," he says, jabbing at his laptop screen.

"What, no polite greeting? No 'hi, Jiyong, how did your meeting with Daesung go?'"

"I can't find Ayumi in the Newcomer folder," Seunghyun wails, turning his laptop to face Jiyong. He's occupied the vanity so that it acts as a makeshift workstation where he has his laptop and his tablet out. He sees Jiyong's reflection in the mirror and pouts at it. "You're my only hope."

"Are you quoting something," Jiyong mutters, pushing Seunghyun out of the way so that he's able to tap away at the laptop with ease.

"Star Wars," Seunghyun supplies, as helpful as ever, and politely ignores the way Jiyong looks Extremely Unimpressed.

Jiyong frowns at the laptop for a couple of seconds before turning to Seunghyun and saying, "you idiot, why were you in the Newbie folder?"

"Newcomer," Seunghyun corrects.

Jiyong shrugs, before clicking on the folder that says Elite. Daesung sure is blunt in his approach of naming folders, Seunghyun thinks.

"She can't be considered 'elite'," Seunghyun says, raising his eyebrows on the last word. "She was really young. Like, twenty something, maybe even less, kind of young."

"Have you considered that age might not possibly matter in this case?"

"But the yakuza are all old and male, though," Seunghyun says, opening a few portraits in the Elite folder to prove his point. Sure enough, multiple photos of old men in suits appear. He accidentally clicks on a photo of a naked mob leader, though, and he nearly jumps in his seat. "Why would you even have that stored?!"

"He's tattooed, which makes it easier for identification purposes to see the full extent of his tattoos," Jiyong says, as if he's talking to a very small child, and as if he thinks storing photos of naked old men on a _shared server_ is completely normal, which it's not, thank you very much.

"Okay, fine, you are all definitely crazy--"

"Thank you."

"--But that just proves my point."

"Which is?"

"Everyone is old and male," Seunghyun says patiently, "and therefore, Ayumi does not belong in this category. I probably didn't check the previous folder thoroughly enough."

"If we find anything related to her in this folder, you'll have to treat me to dinner. At the fanciest restaurant here."

Seunghyun scoffs. "Are you that confident? Also, do you really think there'll be Michelin-star restaurants here in _Disneyland?"_

Jiyong shrugs easily. "My point still stands. I'll get my laptop out, to speed up the process of us searching."

"And if I win?"

"If you win, then I'll stop hating you."

"That's so juvenile," Seunghyun mutters, and then, "wait, you still hate me?"

Jiyong sidesteps his question with an easy, "so, are we on?"

"We are so fucking on."

Four hours (and an empty minibar) later, Seunghyun concedes his defeat as he stares dejectedly at a profile of Kazumi; the mother to twin daughters--Reiko and Ayumi. There's a photo where the latter is staring straight at the camera despite the photo being taken by a hidden camera. Nobody else in the photograph notices the camera, except for Ayumi.

The photograph is honestly more than slightly unnerving, but Seunghyun is too busy sulking in his defeat to think the photograph over.

"We are not on," he grumbles, and Jiyong does this little triumphant dance that's stupidly endearing, even though it shouldn't be, because he looks ridiculous. Seunghyun swears his brain has short-circuited after all the documents he had to scrutinise.

"Do you like French food," Jiyong says, as he's googling French restaurants within the area. "Because I do, and you're definitely paying."

"I like escargots?" Seunghyun says weakly, before slamming his laptop shut and holding his head in his hands in absolute despair. The world has yet again betrayed him, he thinks. "How did you know what I didn't know," he whines.

"You know her tracker that was stuck on you?"

Seunghyun squints at Jiyong suspiciously. "Yeah, what about it?"

"Daesung said that its technology was completely new, even if it only tracks its user's location."

Seunghyun squints so hard to the point where his eyes are nearly shut as he tries to wrap his head around this information. "So?"

"I'm just fucking with you," Jiyong laughs, "I just looked at her tattoos and knew that they were elaborate enough to indicate a higher rank."

"You fucker," Seunghyun says, and throws a decorative couch pillow at Jiyong, which he gracefully avoids, goddamn his grace. "You had an unfair advantage! I was drunk! How was I supposed to see shit, let alone _make out the intricate details of her tattoos?"_

"Your loss," Jiyong says in a sing-song voice, and he takes Seunghyun's Pause of Disbelief as an opportunity to throw another pillow back at him.

This is apparently how Choi Seunghyun wastes away time before he's supposed to do his job of murdering people: by pillow fighting. His mother must be proud of him, he thinks, as he gets a pillow to the face.

 

* * *

 

D-Day happens like this:

Seunghyun picks up yesterday's newspaper off the floor and flips through its pages idly, scanning through headline after headline.

The news is just as bleak as ever--dead person after dead person, a natural disaster somewhere in the world, a terrorist group in the other. He turns to the Arts & Culture section out of interest and focuses his attention on the latest (well, yesterday's) book reviews; gigs; whatever.

"Paintings, paintings," he mutters to himself, looking for any sort of artwork to be found. A short article on an oil-based painting catches his attention, and he looks at it closely, before feeling light-headed.

_LOST PAINTING WORTH MILLIONS FOUND IN MANSION_

_The Cardinal was painted by the late Hae Young Hee, who passed away in a mysterious accident the year before. Reports say that the painting was found in an elusive mansion, despite having been missing for the past year--_

The bathroom door opens and a freshly-showered Jiyong steps out; rubbing his hair with a fluffy white towel. "What're you reading?"

"Nothing," Seunghyun says, getting up to enter the bathroom. "Nothing at all."

  
  
  
  



	2. #FFFFFF

It’s been three months since Seunghyun’s first heist with Bigbang in Tokyo. In between, he had mostly done filler jobs, such as filling out paperwork and helping out the rookies under YG’s supervision. The latter essentially involved teaching them the Art of Extortion, or whatever bullshit title he had come up with at the time.

Now, though, he takes a sip of his bitter coffee and winces. He'd run out of cigarettes a while ago, and he's planning to pop into a convenience store or something as soon as possible to get another pack or two.

"I don't think I've ever seen you wear short sleeves before," Jiyong says thoughtfully over a bowl of instant ramyun. He’d stolen a pack from Youngbae, who typically hoarded food like it was going out of style.

They're in a hotel room somewhere in Macau. Seunghyun looks around the room, which is cast a cool orange as the sun begins to set, and Seunghyun looks around the room. Jiyong has a red blanket wrapped around his body. Daesung's soft typing is audible behind them, and Seungri and Youngbae are bickering about God knows what while they're sat on the well-worn couch.

“I like being covered,” Seunghyun says, simply.

“Huh.” Jiyong blows over his noodles so that they cool faster. He takes a bite and slurps noisily from the bowl, and says, “What if you’re in like, Hawaii, and it’s hot? Will I ever see you in a t-shirt then?”

“No,” Seunghyun says. “Besides, I like sweating.”

“That makes no sense,” Jiyong mutters, continuing to attack the remainder of his noodles. He finishes with a satisfied ‘ah’ and rubs his belly, much to Seunghyun’s amusement.

“What,” Jiyong laughs, “that was a good meal.”

“Hardly gourmet food, but I’ll take it.”

The five of them had thankfully gotten an entire suite for themselves unlike last time in Tokyo where they were all separated. Seunghyun mourns the fact that he’s not able to go out for a smoke, due to the fact that it was apparently ‘raining as hard as dicks’, as Daesung had so poetically put it.

They’ve been in Macau for a week or so--YG had almost sent them off later; closer to the actual heist itself, but Jiyong had argued that they would be able to acclimatise themselves to their new surroundings if they had more time in their new environment. In between this heist and Seunghyun’s first, he’d been pretty free--he was only sent around for minor tasks: eliminating low-profile politicians and businessmen. He’s had some time to himself, and it’s been awhile since the five of them worked on a heist together.

All Seunghyun knows about their upcoming heist is that they’re getting involved in the art underworld. YG had apparently thought that Seunghyun was fit for the job, what with his past history and all. And it’s not like he wants to bury his past, because he _doesn’t_ , but ever since he’d actually stopped fucking around with art (as in, actually stealing shit), he’s been determined to maintain a clean image.

As clean as he can get away with murder, but whatever, he’d rather be a murderer than a thief.

Which is why this new heist of theirs sort of rubs him the wrong way—he’s supposed to pose as a curator and worm his way through casinos searching for information. This time around, they’re not as well-informed as they were in their previous heist in Tokyo. Daesung’s constantly apologised for the lack of fat yellow binders revealing important intel, which is a shame, considering that Seunghyun was really enjoying how he didn’t have to work for information that time.

Daesung had described their current predicament as an ‘Elusive Target’. It’s not as though Seunghyun’s completely in the dark, though, seeing as he has pretty much worked with minimal intel in the past. The rest of the team appear to be handling the situation well—it’s just more of an inconvenience having to work extra, really.

Seunghyun’s suppressed _beretta_ is casually laid out on the table alongside his glass of whiskey. Youngbae had modified it for him so that it had a silencer installed--he catches Seunghyun eyeing it and he says, “There’s no rush, you know.”

With a wide grin, Seunghyun replies, “I know. I was just thinking about our plans for tonight.” He stretches, raising his hands above his head. “What time do we begin, again?”

“Midnight,” Daesung says, wagging his eyebrows.

Jiyong yawns. “How exciting.”

“You sound like you’d be better off sleeping,” Seunghyun comments, and Jiyong hums thoughtfully, placing a finger under his chin.

“You’re right.” He turns to Daesung and goes, “do I actually need to be there tonight?”

“Uh, not really.” Daesung scratches the back of his head. “We have a month here. I just suggested that we start tonight to collect intel as soon as possible, but we’re not in like, an actual rush,” he says, voice trailing off.

“Sweet,” Jiyong says, and makes finger guns at him. “Then I’ll just sleep tonight.”

“Goodnight, my son,” Seungri bellows, and Seunghyun chokes.

The rest of them pass the time by playing blackjack--Seungri had insisted on playing cards in order to ‘brush up on their gambling’.

“That’s not a thing,” Youngbae says, warily, as he acts as their dealer.

He’s about to pass out Seungri’s cards, until Seungri says, “You know, the only card game I know how to play is Go Fish.”

Seunghyun actually does a spittake at that, despite the fact that he hadn’t even been drinking.

“You suggested cards, you idiot.” Youngbae looks at the cards in his hands with an alarming level of distress.

 

* * *

 

The five of them had decided to dress obnoxiously in order to blend in with the other patrons of the resort and the casino. Truthfully, Seunghyun suspects that they all just like wearing loud outfits, so having to do so under the guise of professionalism is a plus. The casino is just as loud as they are; the air thrumming with an undercurrent of money and power and sex, and Seunghyun feels as though he’s come underprepared, but he’ll make up for that in due time.

His leopard-print suit somewhat matches the casino’s wallpaper; a fact which Seungri points out. Daesung had installed a camera into his suit, which blends in perfectly with the pattern. Since they’re just supposed to be scoping the area, there’s no real rush, which is how Seunghyun finds himself idly lingering by a blackjack table.

Seungri and Daesung follow behind him, while Youngbae’s off somewhere else. Seungri says to Seunghyun, “You know that film, 21?”

“Sure."

“Watch me,” Seungri grins cockily, and he sits down and waits for the dealer to finish his hand in progress. Once he’s done, Seungri gestures to buy chips to begin betting. Daesung indicates to Seunghyun that he’s going to go around the area, so Seunghyun figures that he’ll just stick around to see how well Seungri does.

It turns out that Seungri is infuriatingly good at the game--to the point where the dealer asks him to collect his winnings and leave.

“You didn’t cheat, did you?” Seunghyun says to Seungri, who’s busy cashing out.

Seungri just winks at him and steals a glass of champagne from a table they pass by; downing it in one gulp. “Tastes like fizzy grape juice,” he mutters. “You would’ve expected better from a fancy place like this.”

Seunghyun snorts and parts ways with Seungri. He makes his way to the bar and waits patiently for his scotch to come out.

“Thanks,” he says to the bartender, who hands it over to him. Seunghyun takes a sip and says, “Any news on upcoming exhibitions?”

“What kind?” says the bartender, as he wipes down the bar’s marble countertop.

“I’m interested in art, myself.”

“I think the casino’s opening an exhibition on modern art in around two weeks,” he replies. “I’ve heard that the exhibition is supposed to feature young Asian artists.”

“Any particular focus in its subject matter?”

“Nature, I think,” the bartender says, shrugging. “I’m not too sure. I don’t really follow art itself, I’m only relaying what I’ve heard.” He’s smiling as he talks; giving off an air of friendliness. Seunghyun’s still trying to figure out whether he’s being genuine or otherwise.

“That’s alright, thanks very much.”

“Where are you from, by the way? Your accent doesn’t sound local.”

Seunghyun rubs the back of his neck and says, “my parents were immigrants,” in place of an actual answer. He’s read somewhere that bartenders are wells of information--as well as the most suspicious type of person to look out for, so he doesn’t want to give away more information than he already has.

The bartender perks up at this, saying, “Ah, really? Mine too--well, my mother’s from Korea. My father’s from here.”

“Ah,” Seunghyun says, quickly taking another gulp of his drink in order to soothe his frayed nerves.

A woman in a red dress takes a seat next to him. “I’ll have whatever he’s having,” she says, and Seunghyun turns around, only to have her confirm, “yeah, hello, you.”

“Cheers,” he says, holding up his glass, and then, “wait, fuck.”

“Fancy meeting you here,” Ayumi says. Her hair is spikier than the last time he’d seen her in Tokyo, but other than that, she looks exactly the same, down to her wicked grin. Her chipped vampy nails make an appearance as she drums her fingers impatiently on the countertop; only stopping when the bartender hands her drink over. “Hello, T.O.P.”

“Hi,” he says, before mentally firing off a telepathic message to Jiyong along the lines of, _help me you were right she is going to kill me_. She looks younger than ever; as if the glitziness of the casino has made a wider contrast against her real age. Her face is bare save for her carefully-applied red lipstick, which make her eyebags stand out. Seunghyun thinks that she looks older and younger all at once, and he blinks.

“Are you surprised to see me here?”

“A little,” he says, because he’s honestly unsure himself. A part of him had quietly suspected that their meeting in Tokyo wasn’t their last, yet it’s more than unnerving to meet her again under such circumstances. The bartender is busy serving another customer, yet Seunghyun notices out of the corner of his eye that he seems to be eavesdropping on their conversation. Casino staff are probably meant to keep their guard up at all times, but Seunghyun’s had enough freaky incidents for the night, so he focuses on his drink and tries not to tune Ayumi out.

“Are you here on a business trip?”

Something like that, he thinks. “Yeah,” he says instead. It’s not like he’s lying, but Ayumi raises a tattooed brow at him anyway.

“What if your kids knew that you were busy gambling?”

His kids? He stops for a minute, before quickly realising. “This is just a company dinner,” he says. “It’s not a big deal. I’m just here with my--” He stops himself before blabbing to her that he’s got the rest of Bigbang with him, so he says, “I’m just here with myself tonight. Me. Myself. And I.” He honestly wants the ground to swallow him whole.

Much to his relief, Ayumi just snorts at his lame attempt at humour, and they both drink in silence. There’s no rush like last time, so their conversation is a lot more casual; interspersed with curious questions brought upon by their chance meeting. Seunghyun asks her questions and she avoids them, and vice versa. He wants to laugh at their absurdity, but for now, he’s just hoping that she won’t stab him in the jugular while he’s not looking.

He wonders whether he should ask her about the upcoming art exhibition, or whether he’s better off keeping information to himself, before coming to the conclusion that she probably knows more than he does, so he finds himself saying, “Do you know anything about any upcoming art exhibitions?”

“Yeah,” Ayumi says, pausing to drink before continuing. “There’s one located in this casino.”

“So I’ve heard,” he says, “anything you like in particular?”

She shrugs--a one-shouldered motion that takes Seunghyun back to the time they met in Tokyo. “I’m not really a fan of modern art, which is what this exhibition’s showcasing. Or post-modern art, for that matter. I’m mostly fond of Impressionism myself.” She drags a finger around the rim of her glass, and continues. “There’s been controversy around the exhibition that’s taking place, though.”

“What is it exactly?”

“People are saying stuff--I mean, these are just rumours, but,” she stops, before saying, “do you know that Korean painter?”

“There are a lot of Korean painters,” Seunghyun says drily.

Rolling her eyes, she says, “You didn’t let me finish. Hae Young Hee--you know, the guy that got killed in his own apartment, or whatever.”

Seunghyun feels his blood freeze.

“Hae Young Hee?”

She frowns. “You don’t know him? I thought he was really famous in your country.”

“It’s the first time I’ve ever heard of him,” he says, voice coming out rough, and he coughs. “Sorry. There was something in my throat. You were saying?”

“Right,” she says, looking at him oddly, “the rest of his work is being displayed in that exhibition, I think. His family had decided to do so instead of just letting his paintings collect dust.”

“Makes sense,” he says thickly.

“He was the painter of that tiny painting--fuck, I can’t remember it right now. I hate it when this happens--”

“--The Cardinal,” Seunghyun blurts. “He painted The Cardinal.”

“ _Oh,_ so you do know him after all.”

Seunghyun is honestly unable to tell whether she’s being sarcastic or not, so he says, “I just remembered who he was just now.”

“Sure,” she says, lightly, but that had basically concluded the end of their little art talk, and they subsequently lapse into silence.

When she says goodbye with her patented one-shouldered shrug, he has the feeling that they’ll cross paths again, sooner or later.

 

* * *

 

He returns to their suite with more questions than answers, and he feels as though he knows even less than before.

“I hate elusive targets,” Seungri grumbles loudly. His cheeks are a splotchy pink and there’s a brilliant bruise blossoming on the base of his neck. Seunghyun doesn’t even want to know. “They’re so…” He trails off, unable to find a suitable word, before Youngbae says, “elusive?”

“You know me so well,” Seungri says sincerely, which makes Youngbae snort.

Daesung’s busy typing away whatever information they had gathered that night. Seunghyun’s updated him on his curious situation, so Daesung’s cross-referencing the events of tonight with his own intel that they have on Ayumi.

“I don’t know how she’s related to what we’re doing with the whole art business,” Daesung says honestly, which makes Seunghyun even more determined to get a grip at whatever the fuck’s currently going on at the moment. “I mean, I can understand what she was doing in Tokyo, but this?” Daesung shrugs. “No clue.”

“Maybe the yakuza are extorting a bunch of businessmen in casinos,” Seungri says.

Youngbae shakes his head. “Why would they be in Macau to do that? Aren’t they busy sorting out their own pachinko parlors and shit?”

Seungri visibly droops and says, “it was just a suggestion,” before heading into the bathroom to presumably brush his teeth and pass out on his bed.

“Anything you want to add to our ongoing case file?” Daesung says.

Seunghyun yawns. “I don’t know,” he says, before pausing. “Do you know anything about Hae Young Hee?”

“What, the painter who died in his apartment?”

“Can people stop remembering him as ‘the painter who died in his apartment’,” Seunghyun says blearily, rubbing at his eyes.

“I mean, that’s what happened.”

“Okay,” Seunghyun says, and then, “do you know whether he’s involved in our current heist?”

“Not that I know of,” Daesung says. “Do you want me to call HQ or something to doublecheck?”

Seunghyun thinks of YG thinking about Seunghyun thinking about Hae Young Hee and he shudders. What a horrifying thought. “No.”

“Alright,” Daesung says, warily this time. “But seriously, if you want to add anything, just let me know. We’re all gathering information together, after all. We shouldn’t keep secrets to ourselves.”

“Right.” Seunghyun’s voice is hollow.

 

* * *

 

When Seunghyun walks into his shared room with Jiyong, he finds him sleepily squinting at his phone screen; scrolling through whatever.

“You’re awake,” Seunghyun says softly.

“Not quite,” Jiyong answers, drowsily. His voice is small and thick with sleep and Seunghyun feels this sense of _want_ ; takes in the way Jiyong’s curled up on the bed on his side, how he looks so soft without makeup on, all harsh edges removed from him. The room is quiet save for the quiet tapping from Jiyong and his steady breaths. “Did you have a good time without me?” He says, voice light.

“Not quite,” Seunghyun says, surprised at his own honesty as he gets under the covers. He turns to face Jiyong from his own bed. “Guess who I met.”

Jiyong scrunches up his nose. “‘m too tired to guess.”

“Ayumi,” Seunghyun says, wagging his eyebrows.

Jiyong bursts out laughing. “What the fuck, what was she doing there? Is she still here? Do you know where she’s staying?”

“God, so many questions,” Seunghyun teases. “I honestly don’t know, though. I was hoping you’d know yourself.”

“Why do you expect me to have information on your girlfriend?”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Seunghyun says, and fakes an arrow being shot through his heart. “How dare you insinuate the idea of me going out with a twelve year old.”

Jiyong actually chokes at that. “She’s not twelve!”

“She looks like she is,” Seunghyun mutters. “Seriously though. Something about this entire operation feels a little off.”

“They always do,” Jiyong says, and then, “just go to sleep,” his voice a little more sympathetic this time.

So Seunghyun closes his eyes and does.

 

* * *

 

he dreams of this:

there’s panting and paintings and bright, bright red in a tiny canvas, a tiny bird, the word ‘cardinal’ also happens to be an adjective for greatness--the past greats of catholicism too, maybe, lights illuminating and flickering behind--

he’s in a hallway, he’s running away from guards in a hallway, the buttons of his suit are undone and he hears shrieking in the hallway--somebody fires a gun--the bullet hits the wall beside him and he sees fragmented splinters shatter open; there’s ringing in his ears and he’s running, running--

is the painting safe? the painting is with him but is it safe, is he safe? he keeps on running but the hallway stretches onto an endless yawn; it’s all dark and black and there’s noise surrounding him from every corner;

a painting of the virgin mary leers at him and he runs faster, his heart is hammering in his chest his breaths shallow like small pools like small fish in small pools:

he sees himself wrapping his fingers around a handgun and he’s pulling the trigger and he’s pulling the trigger and there’s blood: there’s blood painting the room,

the man across him has paint flecked around his hands and he’s opening his mouth and there’s a giant, gaping hole in his head and there’s blood, there’s blood

and the man says:

“I didn’t want it to happen like this.”

 

* * *

 

Seunghyun wakes up with clammy palms and shaky feet. His mouth tastes dry. There’s flakes of skin visible on the black bedsheets.

He walks out of the bedroom.

He sits on the edge of the sofa and smoothens the crinkled sheets, sighing. Nobody’s awake yet--it’s just him and the quiet ticking of the clock hung on the wall. Fumbling for his phone in the darkness, the screen illuminates the room, allowing him to see what’s in front of him:

an empty glass and a hastily corked bottle of red wine. (Pinot Noir, 1987.)

Ignoring the glass, he removes the cork from the bottle and takes large swigs. Drops of wine splash out onto his pyjamas, and he grimaces. Rubbing at the stain only spreads it further along the fabric, so he ends up setting the bottle down on the table with a loud _thunk_.

He hears footfalls coming towards him, and he rubs his eyes. “Who’s there?”

“It’s me,” Jiyong says, leaning against the door of their bedroom, before taking a seat next to Seunghyun. He feels Jiyong’s warmth radiating off him and Jiyong seems to have ignored all concepts of personal space, at least for that very moment. “Why are you awake?”

“Had a bad dream,” Seunghyun says, absently scratching his thighs. The movement makes a noise against the fabric. Jiyong places a hand over Seunghyun’s own, and Seunghyun stops scratching.

“Are you okay now?” Jiyong’s voice is gentle, not patronising, as Seunghyun had feared, and Seunghyun nods.

Jiyong rubs circles on Seunghyun’s back, and Seunghyun shudders. “Come back to bed,” Jiyong says, and Seunghyun does.

 

* * *

 

The following day is more of the same as they work their way through the casino, only this time, Jiyong’s with them. Daesung’s busy upstairs monitoring their progress--he’d managed to tap into the CCTV system, but he’d said that he’d be unable to join them downstairs as he’d have to constantly ensure that the casino’s security didn’t know he was monitoring them.

As they’re headed downstairs, Jiyong leans into Seunghyun to whisper excitedly into his ear, and Seunghyun can’t help but gravitate towards him as well; feet touching.

Jiyong is a tactile thing; what with his casual touches and his sunny smiles and Seunghyun forgets that he’s in a long con.

The two of them are at a nameless casino pit, and the two of them are pretending like they’ve never known each other. Jiyong’s wearing this jumper that’s three sizes too big for him, and part of his eyeliner is smudged across his eyelid. Seunghyun hates himself for sounding like such a sap--but Kwon Jiyong is maddeningly _beautiful_ , despite everything.

They’re supposed to lay low--not invisible, just at a level where they’re easily forgotten. It’s something to do with the psychology of the whole situation: if they’re invisible, they draw attention to themselves by being missing. (Later on that night, Seungri tells them that he’d gone and won nearly every card game he played, which puts them in a less than ideal situation, because Seunghyun gambles that Seungri’s winnings had placed him on the casino’s blacklist. Daesung swears in despair.)

Cards are being dealt at a frenzy, and Seunghyun has a hard time dividing his attention between the patrons of the casino and the game at hand.

“All reds,” the man next to him says in Korean, triumphantly spreading his hand of cards out on the table, and everyone in the pit lets out a loud groan. Seunghyun catches Jiyong’s eye from across the table.

The dealer reshuffles their cards and their chips are swiftly removed, and the game continues.

The man who’d just won taps Seunghyun’s shoulder. “You had a good hand there. Shame you discarded one of your cards.”

A wry smirk spreads across Seunghyun’s face. “Did I really?”

“You did,” the man says earnestly. “I’m Edward, by the way.”

“Top,” Seunghyun says, sans dots in between.

“What’re you here for?”

“I’m a curator for the upcoming art exhibition.”

“Ah, really?” The man sets down his chips in the centre of the table and the player next to him follows suit. “‘Modern Asia’?”

“That’s the one. Are you involved in it too?”

“I’m just interested in art,” the man says casually, taking a drink from his half-empty glass, finishing it immediately.

Daesung’s voice comes crackling through Seunghyun’s earpiece, and he nearly jumps--he’d forgotten that he was wearing his earpiece in the first place. “Keep an eye on Edward.”

So Seunghyun does: he answers Edward’s questions more animatedly this time; he feigns interest in his sob story about his wife leaving him for another man, how his only daughter refused to see him, and when the game is over and Edward invites him for a smoke in the VIP lounge, Seunghyun follows obediently.

“I was itching for a smoke the entire time,” Edward says, as he lights up a cigarette. The sound of his zippo lighter comforts Seunghyun somehow--it’s familiar, and Seunghyun needs familiar. “I can’t believe they banned smoking in casinos in Macau. It’s idiotic.”

“True,” Seunghyun says faintly.

“Do you smoke?”

“Didn’t bring a pack with me.”

“Take one of mine,” Edward says, and he places a cigarette between Seunghyun’s lips and lights it up with his hands cupped around the flame.

Seunghyun takes a step back and coughs. “Thanks.”

There’s an unreadable expression on Edward’s face, but it only lasts for a moment before his face shifts into its default state. Looking at him gives Seunghyun an odd feeling, like:

Like he’s supposed to know him from somewhere, but he doesn’t.

 

* * *

 

Seunghyun meets Ayumi by the slot machines.

Or, more accurately, Ayumi grabs Seunghyun by the arm as he’s walking by the slot machines, ignoring his yelps of pain.

“What the fuck,” he says, once he’s managed to remove her death grip on her arm.

“Hello, Seunghyun,” she says.

“Who’s Seunghyun? I’m T.O.P. Dots included.”

“Cut the fucking crap,” she says, and forcibly sits him down on a shitty chair by an even shittier slot machine which has seen better days. “You know that I’m spying on you.”

“I am not,” he feigns ignorance, and then, “wait, I mean, you’re not. Spying on me?”

“You’re hopeless,” she says, grabbing a chair and sitting down next to him. “You know who I am. I know who you are.”

“What?”

Jiyong appears behind the slot machine which Seunghyun’s leaning on, and Seunghyun actually jumps in fright this time. “Hi,” Jiyong says, hands stuffed in his pockets. He manages to make the tacky gold chain that’s hung around his neck look fashionable, and Seunghyun hates him.

“You know each other?” Seunghyun looks at Jiyong like he’s personally betrayed him, which he absolutely has.

“As of today, yeah,” Jiyong assures him.

“He’s cute,” Ayumi says, and Seunghyun doesn’t know whether she’s addressing Jiyong or himself, so he decides to wink at the both of them, which is a decision that he immediately regrets. She looks at him with dismay. “Why are you like this?”

“That is a question I ask myself every day,” Jiyong says, smacking his gum, and what the fuck, where did he even get chewing gum from?

“Anyway,” she says, lowering her voice, “I _know things_ . About the art stuff that you’re looking for. I totally know _everything_.”

“Name one impressionist painter that isn’t Monet,” Seunghyun blurts. “Only then will I be able to trust your so-called information--”

“Pissaro,” she says, giving him a funny look.

“Edgar Degas,” Jiyong chirps.

“Eugene Boudin,” she adds, looking at Jiyong appraisingly. “Cezanne. Caillebotte--”

“--Alright, I get it,” Seunghyun grumbles.

“I could go on,” Ayumi grins, turning to Jiyong. “He could too."

Jiyong shakes his head. “I only know Monet, Pissaro, and Degas. Sorry,” he says apologetically.

“You don’t need to apologise,” Seunghyun says to Jiyong, while punching Ayumi’s shoulder.

“That was unnecessary,” she says, despite looking completely unfazed. “Anyway, where was I before you _so rudely interrupted me._ ” The latter is said with a haughty, put-upon sniff, and for the nth time, Seunghyun wonders what he’s gotten himself into.

They find out from Ayumi that she had known all along that they were part of YG--which, given Seunghyun’s drunken outbursts and such, wasn’t surprising at all. What _is_ surprising, however, is the fact that she’s willingly helping Bigbang in their heist. When Jiyong had offered her payment, she’d refused. When Seungri had offered his everlasting love to her, she had snorted in his face.

The five of them--six of them, now--are currently gathered in their suite. It’s several hours past midnight and they’re all reviewing what they’ve gathered during the day. Sure enough, Ayumi fits into their group without any problems whatsoever--their first few minutes together had admittedly been hostile, but after that, they all went back to being themselves: Daesung noisily complaining about the casino’s excessive security, Youngbae being unfailingly polite yet judgmental at the same time, Seungri flirting with Ayumi despite getting shot down every single time.

Jiyong and Seunghyun make notes together, especially after Seunghyun had brought Edward up.

“He was Korean, right? He wasn’t local,” Jiyong says, looking down at their sheets of paper on which they had scribbled all over.

“What makes you so sure?”

Jiyong taps his pen across his lips, and bites down thoughtfully before saying, “Remember the first round he won?”

“What of it?”

“He immediately declared that he’d won in Korean.”

“So? Maybe he had a Korean friend or two.”

Jiyong shakes his head. “I seriously doubt that. It appears as though he came alone. Besides, the fact that he said that he won in Korean means that he instinctively used it. In other words, it’s his first language.”

Pausing to mull this over, he quickly jots down several notes down. Jiyong’s handwriting is large and boxy, and Seunghyun shakes his head, because why is he even taking note of such things.

“What language did he speak to you in?”

“Korean.”

“How did he know that you were Korean?”

Seunghyun stiffens, and then groans. “Not again.”

“You’re really obvious,” Ayumi cuts in, before going back to debating hotly about whatever with Seungri. Maybe they’re talking about hair products. Frying pans. Ways to murder someone. Whatever.

Seunghyun hears Seungri say something along the lines of, “getting shot in the kneecap is hands down the worst place to get shot at,” to which Ayumi retorts with something like, “what about getting your testicles shot,” which is the point where Seunghyun ceases to listen in on them because he’s Given Up.

Jiyong calls Seunghyun over and he answers. “What?”

“This Edward guy,” Jiyong says, picking up from where they’d left off easily, “How is he involved with the exhibition?”

Seunghyun tells him what he knows--that Edward’s just a guest who flew in to play craps and look at art; maybe get laid to forget about his ex-wife. Maybe not. “There’s this thing about him, though.”

Jiyong looks at Seunghyun expectantly.

“It’s,” Seunghyun starts. “I don’t know. I just had this weird gut feeling when I was around him.”

“Yeah?”

“Like--like I was supposed to know him. Like he knew who I was, but he was waiting for me to recognise him.”

Jiyong nods, and says, “Daesung and I will look into him tonight. Have you met him before?”

“Not before tonight, no.”

“Does he look like someone you know?”

“Not really,” Seunghyun begins, before stopping. “Do _you_ know him?”

“If I knew him, I’d tell you,” Jiyong says wryly.

“Of course,” Seunghyun nods sagely, and tries not to laugh when Jiyong rolls his eyes.

 

* * *

 

Seunghyun wakes up at 4:47 a.m. and feels like death. He hears noises from outside, and when he turns over to look at Jiyong’s bed, he’s not there.

He gets out of bed and his feet pad lightly against the marble flooring. When the door creaks open, a startled Jiyong rises up from his armchair and relaxes visibly when he sees that it’s just Seunghyun.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Seunghyun says, and he takes in the way Jiyong’s hair is a right mess; how his laptop screen highlights his eyebags, and how tiny he looks underneath the giant hotel bathrobe he’s wearing over his white t-shirt and boxers, and he feels his cheeks flush.

“Me neither,” Jiyong replies, voice rough with disuse, and he pats the space next to him. Said space in question happens to be the armrest of the chair, which is barely any space at all.

Seunghyun complies anyway and gingerly perches himself on its armrest. When he tries to balance himself, Jiyong stubbornly presses into him so that they’re closer together, and he ends up halfway falling onto Jiyong’s lap.

“Let me grab another chair for me to sit on,” Seunghyun says helplessly, to which Jiyong sticks out his tongue and laughs.

“No such luck. You’re stuck with me.”

“Why,” Seunghyun says despairingly, ignoring their closeness.

“You’re warm and I’m cold.” Jiyong shrugs, as if it were the simplest thing in the world.

And maybe it is, because Seunghyun finds himself telling Jiyong about Hae Young Hee; about _The Cardinal_ , about his nightmare, and he half expects Jiyong to laugh at him, or _something_ , and when Jiyong reaches out to drape a hand over Seunghyun’s shoulder instead, he feels his throat go dry.

“I used to have a mentor,” Seunghyun says. “He was like a father to me, you know? Except he was a father who told me to kill people, so maybe he wasn’t a father after all. Fuck, I don’t know,” he says, babbling, and Jiyong closes a hand around the back of Seunghyun’s neck and rubs reassuring circles there. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

“It’s just--he was the one who told me to kill Young Hee, right, but shortly after that I was out of a job. He just cut all contact with me. Like it was nothing. And I still don’t know why. I tried to get back to him, but then his secretary or something--he just told me that I was blacklisted. That if I’d ever try to kill for money again I would be killed myself.”

Jiyong lets out a breath.

“I mean, I guess that was a good thing? I felt as though I could just leave it all behind. That maybe I’d just settle for a normal life. Live that 9 to 5 life.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I don’t think the five of us could,” Seunghyun concludes.

“But then you were recruited by YG.” Jiyong says, comprehending.

“I was still unemployed at the time. It was one of those sleepless nights, etcetera.” Seunghyun waves a hand between him and Jiyong. “Like tonight, I guess. And then I guess I’m back to whatever this is.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

“I hope so,” Seunghyun replies, and then, “I feel like my past is catching up to me,” he mumbles, into the dark.

 

* * *

 

The exhibition installation begins today, which is how Seunghyun finds himself in the middle of an empty white room. Around him, important-looking people with clipboards walk around, all speaking in hushed tones.

Seunghyun's worked with artists in the past, through legitimate connections or contract work. either way, he's more than happy to be appointed as a curator, and he finds himself easily blending in with the other artists and hired hands there. 

Seungri’s with him, acting as his translator. It's nice this way, since he's able to communicate with the artists there about their own vision and inspiration projected in their work. Seunghyun especially appreciates how each person had their own different response to the overall theme of nature, and for the time being, he forgets about Young Hee and paintings of red birds and stained fingers--   
  
\--until a bespectacled woman carrying a small, square painting in her hands makes him stand still.   
  
"Excuse me," Seunghyun says, walking faster towards the man while Seungri grumbles behind him.   
  
"What," the woman says, "I'm a little busy here."   
  
"May I see that painting?"   
  
The woman gives him a funny look. Seunghyun’s unable to pick up on the rest of her facial expression, due to the fact that she's wearing a doctor’s mask over her face; only her eyes are visible. "I'm putting it up soon. You can see it then."   
  
Seunghyun’s about to say something until Seungri interrupts him. "Is that you, Wendy? It's been so long!"   
  
'Wendy' gives him a bewildered look, and she's about to walk away until Seungri reaches out to grab her by the arm.   
  
"Get the painting," Seungri hisses, while Seunghyun tries to wrench him off her. When Seungri finally lets go, the woman takes off running, leaving the painting on the ground next to Seungri. Probably to call security or something.   
  
"What the fuck have you done," Seunghyun says to Seungri, who's lying down on the floor, writhing in pain.   
  
"She was about to steal the painting, you fucking idiot."   
  
" _What?_ "   
  
Seungri gives him a long-suffering sigh and picks himself up while dusting invisible specks of dirt away from his suit jacket. "You seriously need to pick up on body language better."   
  
This is how Seunghyun finds himself being dragged away from the exhibition hall by a very unimpressed Jiyong.   
  
“How was I supposed to know,” Seunghyun says, mournfully, and Jiyong just pats him on the back consolingly.

“I think Daesung probably told Seungri that she was a thief.”

“So Seungri didn’t know himself?”

“Probably not.”

“So it wasn’t a body language thing?”

“I don’t think so,” Jiyong says slowly, “but you _do_ need to work on that.”

True to his word, Jiyong ends up giving Seunghyun an impromptu lesson on how to read people, and how to respond like a suave gentleman instead of a bumbling idiot.

“I do not _bumble_ ,” Seunghyun protests, which just makes Jiyong nod patronisingly at him. Seunghyun throws his hands up in a gesture of defeat.

Several hours later, Seunghyun’s back in the exhibition hall, sans Seungri this time, as Jiyong’s taking his place. It’s different this time, seeing as Jiyong isn’t as proficient in different languages as Seungri is, so the two of them just end up conversing amongst themselves about the art; Jiyong tugging on Seunghyun’s suit sleeve for him to explain certain works of art, Seunghyun complying. Unlike Seunghyun’s morning, _this_ is easy; he’s just able to talk endlessly about how the loose brush strokes on one painting indicate movement, how textured works give a sort of lifelike quality to the subject at hand.

Daesung’s voice comes through his earpiece, and he tells Seunghyun to actually do his job instead of flirting with Jiyong, which makes him roll his eyes at the nearest security camera.

Jiyong raises his eyebrows quizzically. “Why did you do that?”

“I’m hoping Daesung saw that,” Seunghyun grumbles.

They eventually split up, because they _do_ need to get work done, and so Seunghyun manages to get hold of Seungri, who’s chattering endlessly at Youngbae. When Seunghyun pulls Seungri away, Youngbae gives Seunghyun this look of eternal gratitude, which makes Seunghyun laugh a little.

“Did you find anything out about that woman?”

Seungri blinks guilelessly. “Who?”

“The thief.”

“Ah, her,” Seungri says, and he takes a moment to look off dramatically into the distance.

“Stop that.”

Seungri grins widely. “Yeah, she’s no good, alright.”

“I mean, that’s pretty much a given, considering that she’s a thief.”

Seungri gives Seunghyun a Look.

“Touché,” Seunghyun admits.

“Anyway--I asked around about her. I mean, nobody knew who she _was_ , but a lot of people seemed to understand why she wanted to steal that painting.”

“What was it, again?”

“It was this,” Seungri says, and he leads Seunghyun into a smaller exhibition room. There are only three paintings installed; one of which is a miniscule painting of an even tinier blue bird. Upon closer inspection, the golden plaque underneath it reads _The Thrush_.

“Ah,” Seunghyun says.

“It’s by Hae Young Hee.”

“Yeah.”

“You know, the dead painter--”

“God, how many times do you have to remind me?”

Seungri raises his hands up in a gesture of mock surrender. “I mean, it’s not a big deal. Well. Under our circumstances, I guess it _is_ a big deal, considering that we still don’t know what the fuck that we’re doing, and this is the closest thing that we have to a lead right now.”

“ _Is_ it, though?”

Seungri stares him down. “I don’t know, you tell me. An attempted robbery isn’t something you can just overlook. Especially when said theft involves a painting by--”

“--A dead painter that I killed, yes, _God_ , you are insufferable.”

“Wait,” Seungri’s eyes widen. “You  _killed_ him?”

“Oh my God,” Seunghyun says.

 

* * *

 

“So,” Youngbae says thoughtfully.

They’re all gathered upstairs in their suite. An opened pack of cards lies flat on the coffee table. There are wine glasses and crystal tumblers everywhere. The drinks cabinet is nearly empty, and the room is thick with cigarette smoke, courtesy of Seunghyun and Jiyong.

Seunghyun takes a drag of his cigarette, says, “yeah,” and then coughs. Jiyong helpfully pats him on his back.

“You killed this painter dude,” Seungri says flippantly, as if he hadn’t freaked out about it an hour ago. “And somehow this dead painter is _alive_ now.”

“I mean,” Seunghyun splutters, “I don’t think he’s _alive_. He's not some sort of zombie. It’s just that his paintings are being exhibited today. It’s not a big deal.”

“Maybe his family donated the rest of his paintings to the museum,” Jiyong offers.

“Maybe they’re like, his b-sides. Paintings that he didn’t think were good enough for the world.” Seungri says the latter dramatically, and Seunghyun is _this_ close to resigning from YG. Maybe a 9-to-5 would have suited him, he thinks retrospectively.

Daesung shakes his head. “I seriously doubt that. Did anyone find out who donated his work to the museum?”

They all mutter their ‘no’s and shuffle nervously. What a group of professionals, Seunghyun thinks.

“I confirmed with YG that there’s something _wrong_ with the art exhibition,” Jiyong says. “I think that something is Young Hee.”

“Dead painter,” Seungri corrects.

Seunghyun frowns. “Young Hee.”

“I’m sorry,” Seungri says, “let me amend that: The Artist Formerly Known as Hae Young Hee, because _Choi Seunghyun shot him._ ”

“We’re fucking _criminals_ , for fuck’s sake, not the police,” Seunghyun practically yells, and Youngbae nods sagely.

They all turn to him, and Youngbae shrugs. “What? He has a point.”

“Anyway,” Jiyong says, taking an irritated drag of his cigarette, “that checks out, then. Whatever we’re dealing with here has something to do with Young Hee.”

When they all part ways to their separate rooms, Seunghyun’s left staring blankly at the wall opposite him. Jiyong quietly sits down next to him and says, “You alright?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

Jiyong exhales smoke. “I mean, you do realise that this means Young Hee is definitely involved.”

Seunghyun snorts. “No shit.”

“You're not taking this well,” Jiyong muses.

“Would you?” Seunghyun snaps.

Shrugging, Jiyong purses his lips thoughtfully and says, “I don't know, I've never actually killed someone myself.”

“What,” Seunghyun says.

“You're saying that like it's a bad thing,” Jiyong protests. “The men from the Ocean’s Trilogy never killed anyone.”

“Excuse me?”

Jiyong frowns. “I'm not too sure. But I think they just stole stuff from casinos.”

Seunghyun nods with an air of false comprehension, and the two of them go back to sighing and smoking their cigarettes.

 

* * *

 

The night of the gallery opening goes something like this:

Jiyong spreads the map across the surface of the table, gesturing for the others to come closer. On the table are three cups of unfinished, lukewarm coffee with varying degrees of milk and sweetness.

“I don’t understand why can’t we just use virtual maps instead,” Seungri grumbles for the billionth time.  
  
“Our budget is used up for other more important things.” Daesung says.   
  
Seungri points at Seunghyun. “Like his art collection.”   
  
Youngbae looks tiredly at them. "Will you guys ever take anything seriously?"

"Why are you even wearing shades indoors?" Jiyong says to Seunghyun, exasperated. 

"I have an image to keep." Seunghyun says coolly. “Being an art curator is serious work.” His hair is styled in such a way that bits of it are sticking up in places that they shouldn't be. He'd thought that he'd looked great, but Jiyong had snorted at him while he was looking at his own reflection in the mirror.

Whatever, he thinks. 

"...I don't think you can gain fans from being a thief."  
  
"With these shades on, they won't know I'm a thief,” Seunghyun says indignantly.   
  
The others are watching their conversation with thinly veiled amusement.   
  
Well, everyone except for Seungri, who's busy texting away.   
  
Probably to some unknown girl somewhere.   
  
Or some boy.   
  
Whatever.

"Could you put your phone away for once?" Jiyong says, drumming his fingers on the table. "We still have a job to do, you know."

  
Seungri pulls a face, but he eventually pockets his phone. He even pats it, raising an eyebrow at Jiyong, as if to say, _Look, I'm so obedient, please praise me_.   
  
It doesn't work.   
  
"Let's just start our briefing," Jiyong says, irritably. Seungri smiles at him beatifically.

“Sure thing, boss,” Seunghyun chimes in, lighting a cigarette with a way grin.

They all reach the gallery at various times--Youngbae’s there first, because he's acting as a bodyguard for the night. Jiyong arrives shortly afterwards, together with Seungri.

Seunghyun is fashionably late upon his own insistence, but if he's being honest, he had spent far too much time fretting over his outfit for the night.

By the time he gets there, the opening is in full swing--glasses of champagne are being clinked left and right, and the room is filled with chatter. Seungri is busy being himself--the sound of his laughter booms throughout the room, and people are drawn to him like a moth to light.  From the corner of his eye, Seunghyun spots Youngbae standing by the entrance stoically. When Seunghyun looks meaningfully at him, Youngbae nods back. Seunghyun makes sure to mingle with the high rollers the most--especially the ones who pay attention to Young Hee.  

Jiyong is always a few feet away, acting the part as a troubled artist, and Seunghyun has to stop himself from making unnecessary eye contact. Somehow, the sight of him grounds Seunghyun.

Halfway through his speech about the ergonomics of armchairs, Daesung’s voice comes through the earpiece. “Ready?”

What happens next is a domino effect of Seungri tapping his earpiece, then Youngbae, then Jiyong, and finally Seunghyun himself (albeit he comes in a beat too late because he was admittedly staring at Jiyong’s neck).

They're all on edge as they make sure nothing happens to _The Thrush_.

An hour into the event, Seunghyun feels someone tapping at his shoulder. He turns around to face a man in a three-piece suit. Cigarette smoke escapes from his mouth, and he stands in front of Seunghyun with an expectant look.

Seunghyun lowers his drink. “Yes?” The condensation from the glass sticks on his fingers and he wipes his hand on his trousers absentmindedly before realising what he's done. He can practically hear Jiyong telling him off already.

“It's me,” the man says with a smile. “Edward.”

Seunghyun admittedly dithers for a bit before realising that they had met at the casino--and that Daesung had warned him about Edward after they had met for the first time.

Again, he feels as though there's something not quite right about the situation.

He swallows thickly and greets Edward instead. When he closes his hand around Edward’s as they shake hands, the cool silver band of Edward’s ring feels as though it's pricked his skin, somehow, but when he pulls his hand away and examines it, there isn't a trace of blood. He takes a cautious step backwards and fixes an uneasy smile.

“I see you're here today,” Edward says, and all Seunghyun can do is nod shakily. “You here with your friends?”

“Careful,” Daesung says through his earpiece.

Seunghyun shakes his head. “I'm here alone.”

Edward’s greasy smirk is still planted firmly on his face. “Is that so.”

“Last time I checked, that seemed to be the case,” Seunghyun says, bringing a hand up to scratch the nape of his neck.

“Alright, then,” Edward says, clapping him on the shoulder. Seunghyun can feel his ring bash painfully against his flesh, and he winces. “See you nearby Hae Young Hee’s work.”

“Seunghyun? You alright?” Daesung says, once Edward's out of sight.

“What the fuck,” Seunghyun says, feeling faint.

“Did he do anything to you? I saw him come in physical contact with you. We can't be too careful.”

“I'm fine,” Seunghyun mutters under his breath, before grinning widely at a pretty lady who comes up to him to ask about the artwork being exhibited.

 

* * *

 

Seunghyun is not fine.

He's sweating bullets. This should be fine, because a consequence of being permanently covered up is that you sweat profusely. He's fine with sweating. What's not fine is the fact that everyone else in the room seem to be freezing as the air conditioning is on full blast.

His once crisp white shirt is soaked in sweat, and he winces at the dampness pressed against his back.

“You don't look so hot,” is what Jiyong says to him. The two of them had been hovering around _The Thrush_ while Youngbae monitored Edward--who had apparently left the event a while ago. They move away from the exhibits to get some privacy, so now they're standing outside of the building. Jiyong’s smoking a cigarette, but Seunghyun feels nauseous enough to refuse one.

“I'm very hot,” Seunghyun says wryly. He's frantically dabbing at his brow with a silk handkerchief.

“Sure,” Jiyong grins, before looking at Seunghyun seriously. He presses his hand against Seunghyun’s forehead, before pulling it away, wide-eyed. “You're burning up, and you're sweating like crazy.”

“No shit.”

“Did you eat something bad?”

Seunghyun frowns, deep in thought, before his face twists into a grimace. “Fuck,” he goes, before throwing up all over the pavement.

Jiyong curses and runs back inside to the building, saying that he’ll get Youngbae to contact help. “We can worry about the painting later,” he calls over his shoulder.

Seunghyun slumps weakly on the ground in response, and he closes his eyes.

The gravel feels oddly cool against his temples. 

 

 

* * *

 

Seunghyun wakes up with the taste of iron in his mouth. When he wants to bring a hand up to his lips to investigate, he discovers that he's been bound to a chair. Thick rope is coiled around his wrists and chest, and he groans. He's thankfully not gagged, although he could be, he thinks.

Everything's still foggy, and he blinks and shakes his head to regain consciousness.  

The chair creaks as he struggles against it, but it's no use--he's tied tightly to the point that there's no wiggle room left for him to slip out of his restraints.

He takes a moment to look around the cramped room. A lightbulb swings from side to side in the air, dangling freely from a thin black wire. Its dim glow allows him to see the newspapers covering the walls--at first glance, he thinks they’re just substitutes for wallpaper, but when he squints at their headlines, he notices a common theme.

He's not at all surprised when Edward walks in the small room. He's about to spit on the ground in an act of bravado before he stops himself at the feeling of Edward’s hand around his chin.

“Hello,” Edward says pleasantly, before violently pushing Seunghyun’s head away into the opposite direction. He blows cigarette smoke into his face.

How unnecessary, Seunghyun thinks.  He feels something crack in his neck, and he winces. “Kinky.”

Edward laughs at that, and Seunghyun grins. “You're probably wondering why you're here.”

“I mean, if you say so,” Seunghyun says. Honestly, his life sucks. What kind of person gets kidnapped twice in the past year, he thinks mournfully.

“I'll tell you,” Edward says, flicking ash from his cigarette onto the ground. He looks at Seunghyun smugly before taking a drag from his cigarette and harshly blowing smoke onto Seunghyun’s face. “But first, you have to tell me who hired you to kill Young Hee.”

“Um,” Seunghyun goes, because how is he supposed to tell this apparently crazy person that his own mentor (from his teenage years!) told him to?

“You won't talk? Alright,” Edward snorts, “how about we play a game.”

“You sound like you're trying way too hard,” is what Seunghyun doesn't say, although he is tempted to do so. “Sure,” he says instead.

“Alright, how about this: we’ll take turns asking each other questions. I'll go first--who hired you to kill Young Hee?” Edward's tone has shifted from playful to venomous, and Seunghyun swallows.

There’s no point in hiding. His earpiece has been taken away from him, probably when he was unconscious, and he just hopes that Daesung’s able to locate where he is from his tracker attached to the hemline of his suit. “My mentor,” he says, throat dry. “I was told by my mentor.”

Seunghyun’s known his mentor since he was a teenager, all the way until Hae Young Hee’s death--he’d received nothing but radio silence afterwards.

“I want a name.”

“I,” Seunghyun starts, before laughing upon realising how absurd his answer is. “I actually don’t know.” And it’s true--he doesn’t. He’d always referred to his mentor as such--his mentor. Nothing else.

“Fuck off.”

“I’m serious,” Seunghyun says, in between shaky laughs. “I don’t actually know.”

“Alright,” Edward says, quietly. “It’s your turn to ask me a question.”

“I can ask you anything?”

“You might as well.”

“Are you Young Hee’s brother?”

Edward inhales sharply. “No.”

“Then how are you related to him?”

Edward cuts him off. “You’ve had your turn. I’ll go again: Why did you kill Young Hee?” At Seunghyun’s expression, he adds, “Specifically, why _him_? Why did you follow your mentor?”

“I owed him a favour,” Seunghyun says quietly.“I didn’t have a choice. I was supposed to be done for good afterwards.”

“ _Why?_ " Edward says, and his voice breaks. He tosses his cigarette to the ground and stomps its light out with his feet. “Why did you take Young Hee away from me?”

“Who _are_ you?”

“I was his fiance,” Edward says, and he slumps to the ground tiredly.

Seunghyun remembers his mentor as static rushing through phonelines, tired orders being given out in the midst of crackling police sirens.

Seunghyun remembers his unsmiling face; contradictory with his his light laughs and his quiet firmness.

Seunghyun remembers being kicked in the gut when he got caught kissing another boy at the age of fifteen.

“Young Hee’s family needed the money,” Seunghyun says, although he’s unconvinced himself. “He told me that if Young Hee died, his works would skyrocket in value. That he’d bring his family out of their massive debt.”

“That’s what he told you,” Edward spits, disbelieving. He runs a hand through his hair viciously and laughs, sour. His black hair is peppered with silver streaks, and Seunghyun wonders.

“That’s what he told me.”

“I’m afraid,” Edward says, “that’s only part of the entire truth.”

Truth is subjective, Seunghyun doesn’t say. “Why am I here?”

Edward doesn’t meet Seunghyun’s eyes. “I wanted answers.”

“I’m afraid I have none,” he replies.

There’s a beat. “I wanted revenge. I thought you could help.” The latter is said plainly, with such naivety, that Seunghyun feels a sense of responsibility towards him.

Oh God, he thinks, he’s developing Stockholm Syndrome. He meets Edward’s eyes. “I’ll try to.”

At this exact moment, the door flies open and Jiyong bursts into the room with a gun pointed at Edward’s head.

“Hello,” Seunghyun says, grinning.

 

* * *

 

As it turned out, Seunghyun’s trackers _were_ , in fact, untouched by Edward. After Jiyong had reported to Youngbae about Seunghyun’s fainting spell, he’d returned outside, only to discover that Seunghyun had disappeared.

It didn’t take them long to put two and two together--that Seunghyun had been kidnapped, and Daesung had looked into Edward with further scrutiny. Before, they had only looked out for suspicious activity from him, but now, they investigated his background, and the results were conclusive enough to determine the fact that Edward was Young Hee’s fiance.

Young Hee had grown up closeted--but his widowed mother had suspicions of his own, and Young Hee’s decision to go to art school was a decision that was fought by his entire family. Nobody supported him, except for Edward,who was also coincidentally his rich fiance, and he was the one that supported him both spiritually and financially.

His mother believed that Young Hee was working under her cousin, who had owned a noodle bar. Young Hee had worked there for several months until he decided to enrol part-time in a local art academy, before quitting his job completely to pursue his studies. This hadn’t gone unnoticed by his mother, who kept tabs on Young Hee through her cousin.

“He was depressed,” Edward says, quietly. “He’d been in and out of hospitals after several suicide attempts.”

“I think,” Seunghyun goes, “I think I know who was involved with his death.”

Edward lets out a rough breath. “I was involved. I was the one who let him go.”

“What if you weren’t?”

 

* * *

 

It goes something like this:

Ayumi and Jiyong are in the van together.

She’s driving; Jiyong’s busy smoking with shaky fingers.

The windows are pulled down, but the air remains heavy and he curses as he fumbles for his lighter and he curses as he taps ash out of the window. He watches it disperse into the air, and Ayumi goes, “I was friends with Young Hee in art school.”

Jiyong doesn’t reply.

She goes, “He was a quiet kid. We were all surprised when he had managed to score a deal with a gallery,” and she sighs. “We were even more surprised to find out that he had done so because he had connections.”

“Connections?”

“He was fucking the owner of the gallery,” she says, and continues driving.

 

* * *

 

It goes something like this:

“I loved him,” Edward says. He’s looking at the space behind Seunghyun’s head.

Jiyong goes, “But he didn’t,” and he’s still pointing the gun at Edward.

“I didn’t get him killed,” Edward says.

Seunghyun’s throat is dry. He goes, “My mentor set the contract for Young Hee’s death.” His voice is scratchy. He goes, “He hated me, but I thought he was like a father to me,” and he swallows.

Edward looks broken. “Your mentor was my brother.”

Seunghyun remembers being fourteen and being told to steal bread from some old auntie’s corner shop. He’d loved the feeling of blood thrumming through his veins while he was running away, but he hated the way the bread tasted in his mouth afterwards. Like it was stale, like it was a few days away from its expiration date.

He’d walked away from that shop with a few coins for his trouble and a man in a black suit who told him that he could come with him, if he wanted to.

Seunghyun had thought about the ennui he felt at home, the days he spent counting cracks in the ceiling, the stains on the floor where nobody bothered to clean, and he told that man that he’d come with him.

Seunghyun remembers kissing another boy a year later. His lips were dry and chapped and the boy had a habit of picking the skin on his lips until they bled. He’d tasted iron when they kissed. Seunghyun had also tasted iron in his mouth when the man kicked him in the stomach afterwards.

He was lying face-down on his sofa. He thought that he would cry, but he just blinked blankly and felt nothing.

The man had said something like, _you owe me a favour after today._

Seunghyun had nodded and thought nothing more.

The man had muttered something like, _I don’t want you to grow up like my degenerate brother._ He’d spat on the ground as he said this. _Being an artist who only gets jobs by fucking other men isn’t an accomplishment._

Now, Seunghyun says, “I should’ve known in hindsight,” and he’s about to say something else, before Edward interrupts him with a choked laugh.

“You owe me a favour, Seunghyun.”

 

* * *

 

_The man goes, “You owe me a favour, remember?”_

_“Is it time?”_

_“It’s not right to let his kind go on living amongst us.”_

_“I don’t think--”_

_The man goes, “We are the hollow men. We are the stuffed men--”_

_“Leaning together,” Seunghyun says._

_“This is the way the world ends.”_

_Young Hee goes, “I loved him, once,” and then, “I’ve been ill for too long,” and then, “my mother deserves someone better.”_

_Seunghyun breathes in and breathes out and when he closes his eyes shut he feels the coppery tang of blood against his teeth._

 

 

* * *

 

Ayumi is waiting for the three of them in car. Edward’s the last one to get inside, and after he slams the door shut, he tells her their destination.

“I guess this means I’m your getaway driver, then,” she jokes, except nobody laughs, so she just clears her throat and fixes her eyes on the road.

They arrive at the mansion after midnight.

Edward is the first one to break the silence. “So, this is it, then.”

Jiyong looks at the imposing building, and whistles. “Nice house.”

“True that,” Ayumi says. “Must have cost a fortune.” She pauses, and then she says, “So I guess that other lost painting should be here, then?”

Edward taps at the window. “ _The Cardinal_.”

“That’s all you want from him?” Jiyong asks.

“I want Young Hee back,” Edward says, and Ayumi snorts. “You know what to do,” he tells Seunghyun.

Seunghyun slams the car door shut, after saying, “His place is all faux Renaissance bullshit, anyway.”

Contrary to what Edward had said, he doesn’t know what to do, not really, so all he has is a handgun tucked into his boot. “Not with a bang, but with a whimper,” Seunghyun mutters to himself, and scoffs. He walks up the front door and knocks twice.

He doesn’t know whether to be surprised when the door almost immediately creaks open, and his mentor steps out of the shadows. “I’ve been expecting you.”

“Why is everyone being so dramatic tonight,” Seunghyun blurts, before walking in.

 

* * *

 

They sit awkwardly across each other. Seunghyun’s perched on a particularly uncomfortable wooden chair, and he’s about to say something, but his mentor beats him to it.

“You want the painting,” he says flatly.

No point in hiding it, he thinks. “Yes.”

His mentor leans forward, and sneers. “What makes you think that you can have it?”

“I don’t _think_ that I can have it,” Seunghyun says. “I _know_ I can.”

There’s a pause. “I raised you well.” This remark seems to be aimed more at himself rather than Seunghyun.

Both of their phones are placed on the coffee table directly in front of them, and at that moment, Seunghyun’s phone buzzes.

He stares at it, uncomprehending, before his mentor gestures at it with a raised eyebrow. Seunghyun picks up the phone. “What?”

It’s Jiyong. “He destroyed the painting.” He laughs. “He destroyed the fucking painting --that was worth millions, by the way--because he knew that we were coming for him tonight. This was all fucking planned, and we just walked straight into his trap. We’re entering the place soon, fuck this guy.”

“ _What?”_

“There’s no use, just leave him--” Seunghyun hears someone screaming behind him and the phone line abruptly cutting off.

“Did you…” Seunghyun trails off.

“I told you that you couldn’t have it.”

 

* * *

 

What happens next is a blur of red and anger and there’s a tangle of arms and Seunghyun finds himself restraining Edward, who’s about to gouge his mentor’s eyes out, Edward, who’s had nothing but pain up to this point, Edward, who’s seeking his own salvation but--

“It can’t happen like this,” Seunghyun screams, and he pulls him back, and he trips. The both of them fall into the coffee table, and glass goes flying everywhere, and there are shards embedded in Seunghyun’s skin, and Edward kicks against him.

Noise rings in his ears.

Ayumi’s yelling, telling Jiyong to back off--Jiyong has a gun in his hands, has a loaded gun pointed at Seunghyun’s mentor, and Jiyong says something, but Seunghyun can’t quite pick up on what he’s saying, and his mentor--the man he once knew as his mentor--spits out a reply, but he’s still smiling, he always has that stupid fucking smile fixed on his face, and Jiyong’s screaming now, he pushes Ayumi away, and he takes aim and his forefinger presses the trigger and then there’s--

 

stillness.

 

* * *

 

Seunghyun remembers Jiyong throwing up in that alley, remembers Jiyong telling him wide-eyed that he’d never killed anyone before. He’d shared that with Seunghyun, almost like it a secret that he had held with pride.

Seunghyun remembers reassuring Jiyong that he’d never had to kill anyone himself, that the reason why he was recruited in the first place was to kill for them.

“I don’t want you to end up like me,” he’d said, and Jiyong had laughed and told him that he didn’t mind being like him.

 

* * *

 

The drive home is silent.

It’s silent, save for the fact that Jiyong’s bouncing his leg up and down restlessly; Ayumi’s drumming her fingers on the steering wheel; Edward’s practically rocking himself back and forth.

So maybe it isn’t so silent after all, but Seunghyun closes his eyes anyway and finds sleep.

 

* * *

 

They go back to Seoul after that, sans Ayumi, who goes back to Tokyo. (They drop her off at the ferry terminal without fanfare. She gives them a one-shouldered shrug and tells them that she’ll be seeing them soon.)

They all take a month off before they have to get back together at their office building to fill out their remaining paperwork.

Youngbae, Seungri, and Daesung are in charge of dealing with the inevitable media fallout--not too long ago, the fact that _The Cardinal_ had been found had made major headlines, and it’s up to them to create a cover story that’s satisfactory enough for the journalists, who are already impatient for a follow-up.

Jiyong was supposed to help out as well, but shortly after he was cleared from doing his paperwork, he had gone off the radar and disappeared.

“He’s not picking up my calls,” Youngbae tells Seunghyun.

“Why are you telling me this?”

Youngbae just gives him a judgmental look and goes back to bickering about whatever with the other two.

This is how Seunghyun finds himself knocking at Jiyong’s door at midnight.

A bare-faced Jiyong opens the front door, and gives him a once-over before ushering him inside. Jiyong looks at Seunghyun warmly, and Seunghyun wants to close his hand around Jiyong’s.

“This feels all too familiar,” Seunghyun jokes, before realising that the last time this happened, Jiyong had ended up putting a bullet through a man’s skull, so he stops himself.

“I’m sorry,” Jiyong blurts.

“What for?”

Jiyong gives him a withering look. Old habits die hard, apparently, Seunghyun thinks.

Seunghyun shrugs. “Not your fault. He turned out to be a jerk, anyway. I would’ve done it myself.”

“Would you really?”

“I actually don’t know,” he admits. “I’m just glad all of this is over.”

“Until the next time YG calls us up again, I suppose,” Jiyong says, thoughtfully.

“So, is this it?”

“Probably.”

“I guess--”

“--you’re right.”

There’s a beat, and then--

Seunghyun clears his throat. “I’m just gonna,” he says, before going, _what the hell_ , and he leans down and kisses Jiyong, before letting go. “Oh God, was that out of line?”

“Yeah, probably,” Jiyong says, and Seunghyun’s this close to leaving, before Jiyong says, “but I kinda liked it,” and Seunghyun laughs and presses him against the wall and plants wet kisses all over Jiyong’s face. “You’re so gross,” he giggles, but Seunghyun ignores him.

“I thought it was all over,” Seunghyun says, finally, when he pulls away to breathe, because Dear God, his heart is hammering away at the speed of sound, probably, and God, Jiyong is so beautiful up close.

Jiyong looks at him fondly. “You’re a fucking idiot.”

Seunghyun shrugs. “It’s part of my charm,” and Jiyong rolls his eyes and tip-toes up and kisses him soundly.

 

* * *

 

 

(Months later, Youngbae goes, “I can’t believe we didn’t pick up on the fact that Edward was engaged to be married to Young Hee earlier on.”

“Of course we didn’t, most people don’t go around announcing, _hey, I’m engaged!_ ” Seunghyun says.

Jiyong raises his hand. “My sister did.”

“So did my mother.” Seungri adds.

“I hate you all,” Seunghyun concludes.)

 

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from t.s. eliot's 'the hollow men'. the poem is also referenced throughout lel
> 
> i don't think that seunghyun listens to death grips but it would be hilarious if he did.
> 
> please feel free to leave concrit!!! and hmu on twit [@plantgd](http://twitter.com/plantgd) so we can yell about gtop and MADE and we can ride into the sunset
> 
> also here is a list of things that Kept Me Going while writing this, not like anybody asked:  
> the Ocean's Trilogy / reservoir dogs / ha jungwoo / a little life / the fake ah crew / sleeping dogs
> 
>  
> 
> thank you so much for making it this far!!!<3


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